Squire Lost
by PrydwenCat
Summary: When a training mission goes horribly wrong, a Brotherhood Squire is left stranded alone in the wasteland. His predicament unites the Brotherhood of Steel and the Commonwealth Minutemen as they launch a desperate search to find him before he falls victim to the perils of the wasteland. (Rated T for wasteland typical violence.)
1. Vertibird Down

**Squire Lost**

Vertibird Down

A dense fog settled over the Mystic River. Spilling out across the river banks, it covered the Commonwealth both to the north and to the south. Visibility was poor at best, as the late morning sun illuminated and magnified the fog, almost making it glow. It was so particularly thick at the confluence of the Malden and Mystic Rivers that it hid Poseidon Energy behind a bright yellow veil. Obscured in the fog, a vertibird traveled to the northwest. Almost invisible to anyone standing on the ground, the only sign that it was nearby was the thumping of the blades that propelled it through the sky.

Aboard the vertibird was Star Paladin Reeves and his team on their way to a clear Bedford Station of ferals. The mission, wasn't expected to be a difficult, so Lancer Captain Kells attached a Squire to the team so that the boy could get more field training. The entire mission was low risk, to both give the lower ranking members some experience, and to ease the Star Paladin back into the field after an unfortunate incident involving a Behemoth and a Mirelurk Razorclaw.

Sitting on the bench beside Aspirant Lyndsey and next where Initiate Samuel Wells knelt on the floor, Squire Declan clutched the seat tightly as he peered into the fog's thick yellow glow. He had occasionally been able to make out the top of a tall building, but now he couldn't see a thing. Leaning forward a bit, he tried to see the instrument panel in the front. Lancer-Initiate Aducci was using the vertibird's instruments to tell where they were going and the Squire wished he knew how to read them.

"Sit back," Sam told him, obviously uneasy by the way he clutched the leg of the bench seat.

"Sorry," he whispered, quickly doing as he was told. He watched the Initiate for a moment. "You're new," he stated. "You're from here in the Commonwealth. What's your name? I'm Declan."

The Initiate regarded him warily before his expression softened and he smiled. "I'm Sam," he introduced himself. "I'm the first in my family to do something besides scavenging." Aspirant Lyndsey made a face, but it went unnoticed.

Declan smiled. "Well welcome to the Brotherhood, brother." He looked down, playing with the edge of an undercoat that stuck out from under his uniform sleeve. He shoved it back underneath with a gloved finger. After a moment of deliberation, he pulled it back out. "See this? It's something my uncle made for me. He used the scrap leather from the Elder's battlecoat. It's got some kind of ballistic weave, but it's not as tough as the Elder's. He said that would make far it too heavy and too bulky to hide under my uniform."

"So is your uncle a tailor for the Brotherhood?" Sam asked.

"He's Proctor Teagan," Declan answered proudly. "He's Proctor for the Order of the Sword."

"You're messin' with me," Sam smiled.

"I'm not! The next time you need ammo, tell him you were on the mission with me. I'll put in a good word for you."

"Will he cut me a deal?"

"He might if I ask. I'll make sure to tell him that you looked out for me on this mission."

"I could use a break. Ammunition prices are steep."

"So I've heard but I wouldn't really know," Declan shrugged. "I could quote you ammunition prices all day long but I've never shot a gun in combat or training to see how fast you use it up. Well, nothing besides my uncle's laser pistol at old Nuka Cola bottles, but they won't give me my own gun yet. I'm not old enough."

A look of astonishment crossed the Initiate's face. "They're sending you in unarmed?"

"I'm not allowed to fight," Declan told him. "I'm here to observe proper extermination techniques and that's it."

"But we're going to a train station full of ferals."

"And it's your job to eliminate them and keep me safe," Declan told him. "But should you fail –" he reached down and pulled a combat knife out of his boot. "The Elder doesn't have a rule against blades. Not one that I've found anyway." He put the knife away and leaned back in his seat. Sitting like this, his toes barely brushed the floor of the vertibird. He caught Paladin Reeves watching him. "I'm not going to fight, Sir," he assured him. "Its my Mother's. She says its lucky." He glanced over at the Initiate, uncomfortable in his inability to read if the Star Paladin was annoyed through the helmet of his power armor. "I've been on half a dozen missions here in the Commonwealth and I've never had to use it, so I think that she's right."

"I'll make certain you don't have to test that luck," Sam assured him.

"Thanks," Declan smiled.

Gunfire pinged against the side and bottom of the vertibird. It wasn't that unusual, and at first Declan didn't notice it over the sound of the vertibird's engines. The vertibird lurched when their pilot, the Lancer-Initiate, was struck. Sam pulled out his rifle, but the fog was too thick to see down to the ground. The gunfire intensified as Aspirant Lyndsey held Declan back in his seat. A few more rounds made their way inside the vertibird, one striking the back of the Lancer-Initiate's seat and the other ricocheting off of the Paladin's armor and striking Lyndsey.

"Bring us around!" Paladin Reeves shouted up to the Lancer. "Light 'em up, Knight!"

"Yes sir!" Knight Sloan replied enthusiastically as the minigun whirled to life.

From his seat, Declan watched the Knight unleash a torrent of bullets with the vertibird's mounted minigun. The vertibird began to list to one side as the Lancer-Initiate continued bringing it about. Declan slid on the bench seat, but the Aspirant took hold of his arm and held him. Her hold on him was weak and Declan attributed that to the blood soaking through her uniform. She was injured. He slid down in his seat to brace himself against the floor and tightly held the metal frame of their bench with his left hand. Pulling his right arm free of hers, he slid it around her waist. "I've got you, Sister," he reassured her as she wrapped her injured arm around his shoulder.

"No, I've got you." She let out a strained chuckle. Her attempt to play down the situation and keep him calm worked. Despite being under attack, Declan wasn't worried so long as he had his team. This wasn't his first battle and it wouldn't be his last.

Sam lost his footing and fell into Declan. Lyndsey held onto the bench as tightly as she could but Sam's added weight pushed her off. Declan lost his grip on her and she fell onto the floor between the bench and the Paladin. Snaking her good arm around the bench supports she held on tightly.

A fiery trail narrowly passed over the cockpit, lighting the fleeting fog in an orange glow.

"They have missiles," the Lancer-Initiate called out, his voice weak.

A second fiery trail erupted from the fog below and made contact with the port engine. Knight Sloan and her minigun were blown off the vertibird in the blast, and Star Paladin Reeves threw himself between the blast and his remaining team members. Declan and Sam were shielded from most of the shrapnel and heat, but Lyndsey wasn't so lucky. The vertibird rolled onto its side and Declan had only a moment to process that he'd just witnessed her death before her body tumbled out and disappeared into the fog.

"Bail!" Paladin Reeves yelled to Sam as he braced himself inside the listing vertibird.

"What?!"

"Jump!" Reeves repeated. "Find any survivors and go back to the Prydwen! That's an order!"

Sam looked panicked, and Declan was certain the look was mirrored on his face as well. The vertibird fell into a downward spiral when the Lancer lost consciousness. Holding onto the edge of the floor with one hand, the Paladin took hold of Declan with the other.

"Head southeast," the Paladin yelled over the vertibird's failing engine. "Be careful sticking too close to the river. The mirelurks will tear you apart. If we don't make it you go straight to the Prydwen. You got that soldier? Southeast along Mystic River."

Declan managed a nod, even if he couldn't imagine how he would ever survive to get to the ground again. His chest tightened in panic. He wasn't like the other Squires—he was afraid to die. This was nothing like sleeping.

"Which way do you go?" Reeves shouted at him.

"Southeast!" Declan answered.

"Ad Victoriam, little brother!" the Paladin shouted as he shoved Declan down through the port-side opening and into the river below.

Declan hit the water and was immediately pulled under by both the force of his impact and the current of the river. While the water wasn't particularly deep, he struggled to swim to the surface. Weighed down by his gear, he tore off everything that removed easily, including his uniform top. He would've removed his custom battlecoat but there were too many buttons. A little less weighed down, he swam as hard as he could to reach the surface, risking burning in the orange glow up above over drowning in the irradiated water that was all around him. When the main body of the vertibird crashed, Declan could hear and feel it under the water.

Making it to the surface, Declan gasped for air as he splashed around trying to get his bearings. All that laid before him was fog and water. He paddled around looking for his team, but he couldn't see anything but a fiery orange glow. The crashed vertibird put off a heat that he could feel on his face but Declan was undeterred. It was important that he checked for survivors. He swam towards the crash site. He swam as hard as he could but he couldn't make any headway against the river's current. Exhausted, he let the current carry him away.

His legs bumped up against the rocks when he entered shallow water, but he struggled to get his footing. He washed up on a muddy river bank underneath a fallen tower of some kind. He laid there for a few minutes, recovering from his exertion, and just stared up at the large beams that disappeared into the fog. There was a muddy, slightly bitter taste in his mouth from swallowing so much river water. His body ached, his muscles burned, and every breath stung. If anyone had survived the crash, they were being very quiet. Were they surrounded? Was he the only survivor? He shoved himself up to a sitting position, his leg and hand sinking into the mud. He tried to remember his training. It was important that he not panic. He needed to take inventory but it was hard to focus on anything besides his head pounding with every heartbeat. Most of his gear was lost in the water, he felt sick to his stomach, his vision was blurred, and he was all alone.

The panic won out and took a firm hold of his chest as he crawled up the rocky bank and away from the water. The Paladin's warning rang fresh in his ears **.** He collapsed again, this time on scratchy dry grass. His heart was still pounding in his chest, but the sound of weapon fire gave him hope. He knew that gun. That was the vertibird's minigun. Knight Sloan had survived. He crawled a bit closer, following the sound. He came into a partial clearing in the fog, and for the first time all morning, was able to see his surroundings.

Before him was the remnants of some pre-war neighborhood. Someone, or something, had moved pre-war vehicles to build a perimeter fence around it. The smell coming off of the place bothered him, but he couldn't quite place what it was. Not brave enough to go into the reinforced housing compound the shooting was coming from, he stayed low to the ground like a newborn radstag and kept a sharp eye out for any other hostiles. Nervously, he pulled his knife out as he listened to the gunfire. Had the Knight fallen behind enemy lines or had she run in to try and distract them from the vertibird? Declan didn't know, but he was fairly certain the Knight was his hero. An explosion erupted from inside the compound, shaking the ground and everything around him. The minigun quit firing.

"Ha ha ha ha ha!"

"I am Super Mutant! I am unstoppable!"

Declan's heart sunk. Any hope he'd had of finding any of his fellow soldiers died when he saw a pair of super mutants come out of the compound. He stayed low as he tried to move away from them.

"Someone there?" one of the mutants taunted.

"Here human. Here human. I got a treat for you!"

Declan laid down on the ground. Fear had paralyzed him. He closed his eyes and willed himself to breathe slowly. The only thing he could hear was his pounding heart, so he had to force himself to open his eyes so he would know if he needed to run. There was a third super mutant outside the compound now. They were looking for survivors.

His hand brushed across something metal, and he realized with great astonishment that it was a pistol. He had no idea whose it was, but at that moment he didn't care. Grabbing it, he crawled behind a bush and looked around. The clearing he'd been in was a small one, because he was back in the fog again. He couldn't tell which way to go, so he just started running in a direction that was away from the super mutants.

* * *

Up on the Prydwen, Lancer-Captain Kells rushed up the stairs to the Command Deck. Maxson didn't look over, his gaze focused on the radiation storm that swirled over the crater that used to be C.I.T. The Institute was gone—not defeated by the Brotherhood but rather by a bunch of farmers and drifters with laser muskets and pipe rifles. While there was certainly enough tech in the Commonwealth to justify the Brotherhood's continued presence, they'd spent so much time and energy and lost so many of their own preparing for a battle that was fought without them—well, it hadn't been fought entirely without the Brotherhood. Paladin Danse and Paladin Brandis had joined Knight Miller and his Minuteman for their attack on the Institute.

While Brandis could be dismissed as disillusioned and delusional due to his traumatic experience in the wasteland, Danse was an exemplary soldier, Maxson was not happy that one of his most esteemed Paladins had left him in the dark about such an important operation. As for the Knight, his stunt with the Minutemen and his refusal to follow orders had proven that he wasn't Brotherhood material. Unfortunately, the popular opinion among the ranks was that all of the men were deserving of promotions. Many of the other soldiers felt that promotions to Star Paladins were in order. A few others believed the rank of Sentinel was appropriate. Maxson disagreed—he'd felt blindsided and betrayed because they worked behind his back and withheld vital Institute information from the Brotherhood, but he couldn't punish them without the possibility of causing outrage.

"Elder," Kells interrupted. "I have urgent news."

Maxson sighed as he rubbed his face. "What is it?"

"One of our vertibirds went down while en route to a mission."

"Were there any survivors?"

"We're uncertain. Their distress message didn't come through. The broadcast was cut off before we could get their coordinates."

"Can you trace the bird's tracker?"

"No sir, it appears to have been destroyed."

"Who was on board?"

"Star Paladin Reeves, Knight Sloan, Lancer-Initiate Adduci, Aspirant Lyndsey, Initiate Wells, and Squire Declan."

"We've lost a Squire?" Maxson asked in a low, serious tone.

"We can't confirm who we've lost until we find that vertibird."

"We've never lost a Squire before."

"And until we find a body, I'm not going to concede that we have," Kells spoke simply. "I've alerted everyone in the general area and have rerouted nearby vertibirds to begin searching for the crash site."

"Does Proctor Teagan know?"

"Of course not, that's why he isn't up here right now demanding a vertibird for his own search."

Maxson frowned as he turned to look out at the Commonwealth. "Inform Teagan and keep me apprised."

"Yes sir."

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** This is the first story I've posted in a long time and my first Fallout fic. It's a bit intimidating writing in such an active fandom. I hope you enjoy the story.


	2. A Night in the Commonwealth

**Squire Lost**

 **Chapter Two: A Night in the Commonwealth**

Captain Kells waited patiently for Proctor Teagan to finish a transaction with a pair of Scribes. Once they were out of the way, he walked up to the cage and placed his hand on the counter.

"Looking to pick a fight? I'll help you end it," Teagan greeted him with a wry grin. When Kells didn't smile, he tried again. "I got a new shipment of supplies in. I have some of those candies that you like to pretend that you don't like. I've also got an orange Nuka Cola. I've never seen one of those before but Knight Miller says they're his favorite," Teagan said as he wiped some grease from the counter. "Come on, why so glum? I'm sure I've got something here that'll put a smile on your face." When he still failed to get a reaction out of the Captain, Teagan grew serious. "What happened? Is Declan alright?"

"We've lost contact with the vertibird that Squire Declan was traveling on."

All the blood drained from Teagan's face and he lowered himself to sit on the edge of one of his storage trunks. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. He immediately thought of his friend Rico, his brother, and then of Declan's mother back at the Citadel. "What do you mean you lost contact? Where are they? Were they in distress? Did they make it to Bedford Station?"

"We're uncertain at this time."

"You're uncertain?" he asked. "How can you be uncertain? Didn't your pilot have a flight plan logged?"

"I've diverted all nearby patrols to search along the vertibird's planned flight path but the weather is hindering their progress. Visibility has been poor all day due to rain and a heavy fog," he informed him. "I assure you that we are doing everything we can to try to locate the missing vertibird. Ordinarily in a situation like this, we wouldn't divert so many resources to find one team, but Declan's presence on this mission makes locating their whereabouts a high priority. I expect results and I have faith that my men will bring them."

"If the visibility is so poor, why did you chance sending a Squire out in the first place?"

"Unlike most of the other Squires, who have yet to see any serious combat, Declan has more experience in the field. I thought that the weather conditions would pose a unique challenge for him to have to compensate for. I'd given the Star Paladin orders that once the ferals were cleared, Declan was to navigate through the fog and lead the team to the Starlight Trading Post operated by the Minutemen."

Teagan nodded quietly as his eyes scanned across everything he had stashed below the counter. They came to rest on a handful of Declan's toys grouped together on the bottom shelf. It would have been a beneficial experience. Declan was one of two Squires who had started their live weapons training, so it made sense that he would get more advanced training missions as well. "What about the trackers?" A haggard looking Knight approached the cage, but Kells sent him away with a wave of his hand.

"All of our vertibirds are equipped with them," Kells replied. "But the tracker on Declan's vertibird stopped transmitting a signal at the same time the vertibird's automated distress signal went offline."

The automatic distress signal had been deployed just prior to everything going offline? Teagan knew what that meant. "It went down," he managed as he brought a hand up to his mouth. "He's most likely dead."

"A vertibird going down does not necessarily mean that the crew on board was lost," Kells reassured him. "Close to fifty percent of our soldiers walk away from vertibird crash landings."

"And how many of them make it all the way back to the Prydwen?" Teagan charged. "Even if Declan survived whatever has become of the vertibird, he still has to survive the wasteland, and he has to do it unarmed."

"You speak as if Declan is alone," Kells told him. "Keep in mind that he was traveling with two very experienced members of the Brotherhood. If they made it to the ground safely, I am certain he is in the company of very capable soldiers. I don't allow just any soldier to take the Squires out. He is learning from some of the best."

Teagan nodded numbly, shock and grief straining his features regardless of Kells' reassurances. "I'll take comfort in your high standards once my nephew is safely back aboard the Prydwen."

"I understand," Kells told him. "I'll leave you to your duties and will alert you the moment our teams find anything."

Teagan let him walk away. Pushing himself up off of the crate, he ran a hand down his beard as he looked around. He couldn't believe Declan's vertibird had gone down – the thought made him sick with grief. "Scribe!" he called out.

"Yes, sir!" one of his men responded immediately, clipboard in hand.

"I want you to inform Scribes Danaka and Winslow that I may be taking an emergency leave from my duties to deal with an issue on the surface. If I do, they're to step in, run the counter, and guard the cage in my absence."

"Yes, sir."

He watched as the Scribe hurried around the corner. Left alone, Teagan eyed the bottles of whiskey and vodka under the counter. He doubted anyone would try to stop him from having a drink. It would be getting dark soon and the one thing that scared him more than the thought of Declan being stranded out in the wasteland, was the thought of Declan being out in the wasteland in the dark. He hoped Star Paladin Reeves and Knight Sloan were with him.

Declan shifted his body as he lay on the floorboard of a rusted, but fairly intact, pre-war vehicle. It certainly wasn't comfortable—the rise in the middle of the floorboard forced his legs to rest higher than the rest of his body—but it shielded him from the wind and rain and kept him hidden from anything wandering through the Commonwealth.

He'd walked for what felt like hours, lost in the rain and fog, disoriented by the thickness of the brush, and hindered by the blurriness of his vision and the spinning feeling in his head. When he'd found the pre-war car on the side of a road, he'd climbed inside of it to rest and take shelter. At some point he'd dozed off, but his sleep hadn't been substantial or restful. He was still exhausted and everything hurt. His muscles burned, his body ached, his stomach was still unsettled by the amount of river water he'd accidentally swallowed, and he'd become vaguely aware that he had some sort of burns or abrasions on the left side of his face and the back of his neck. He had nothing to treat them with, so he just laid on the floorboard and stared out one of the glassless windows at the clear night sky. The one positive was that his vision had finally cleared up. His head still felt funny, but at least he could see clearly.

Of course the sky would be clear now. The Commonwealth was a bitter, inhospitable place. The skies couldn't have been clear when they were trying to travel to Bedford. No. Instead, the sky cleared up once he was all alone at night, in wet clothes, and in an improvised shelter on the side of the road. While the stars were beautiful, the clear sky meant lower temperatures. Regardless of how hot it got during the day, it wasn't uncommon for the temperatures to plummet at night. On clear nights, the temperature dropped even further. He wet his lips and he tried not to cry. His uncle wouldn't cry and Paladin Danse certainly wouldn't cry, so he wouldn't cry either.

Outside, he could hear a buzzing noise that he couldn't quite place. The unidentified noise disrupted the night's desolate silence and put him on edge. This wasn't the first time he'd heard the noise, but its source had moved. He kept quiet and stayed low in the car. Whatever it was, he didn't want to engage it.

He'd been lying on the floorboard of the car long enough to take inventory of everything he had lost. He'd lost his utility belt, hat, field jacket, gloves, scarf, stimpak, and his father's compass. The loss of the compass weighed most heavily on him—with it gone, he had no way of navigating should the weather turn stormy or foggy again. Not to mention it was the only thing he had left of his father. His mom and uncle would be so disappointed to hear that he'd lost it. Aside from the pistol he'd found, his mother's knife was his only means of defending himself. Considering his pistol only had two bullets, his main means of defense was really just the knife. The clothing that he still had on, his pants, socks, boots, an undershirt, and his battlecoat, were all soaked thoroughly and the damp material gave him chills.

Whatever the buzzing sound was, it grew very loud. His heart raced as he peered out a hole in the rusty car door. He still couldn't see anything but something was definitely going on outside. The car creaked as it rocked and swayed and he held his breath as he listened to a deep, rumbling, almost purr-like sound passing close by. He pulled his knees in closer to his chest and clutched his pistol tightly as he stared up at the ceiling of the car. If something was going to grab him, he at least wanted to have a clear shot at it before he died. The buzzing noise became angry and frantic. The deep purr turned into a low growl, and Declan realized what was just outside of his vehicle. Rolling back onto his side, he grimaced in pain and peered out the rust hole. He was very cramped, curled up in a ball like he was, but he had a decent vantage point. At first he could see nothing but the moonlight on the barren road, but after a moment, the thick, scaled tail of a deathclaw came into view.

His breath caught in his throat as he watched it perform an almost drunken dance. He hoped this wasn't some sort of mating ritual—he didn't know that he'd survive a close encounter with one deathclaw, let alone two. The deathclaw let out a deafening roar, causing Declan to jump as he closed his eyes and cover his ears. He hit his head on the underside of the dashboard, and even though it hurt enough to bring tears to his eyes, he stayed as silent and still as possible. His heart raced in his chest but he couldn't tear himself away from his peep hole. He watched the deathclaw slap a bug out of the air and then bite it. Almost immediately, the deathclaw reverted back to its content purring as it looked around with the legs and wings of an unfortunate blood bug jutting out of it's mouth. Declan let out a sigh of relief as he watched the deathclaw chew up the offending insect before it spat it out and left it in a mangled heap on the ground.

His thoughts went to all the tales about the Elder and the deathclaw that he'd single-handedly slain. He'd never actually seen one in person, and even though it was at least fifty feet away, it was still very intimidating. Declan continued lying where he was, watching as the deathclaw appeared to be pacing and waiting for something. When a second and then a third deathclaw came into his line of sight, his eyes widened and he curled up closer to the door. They were significantly smaller than the first,and looked like they might be babies. Did that mean that the big one was the mother? Mothers protecting their young could be very dangerous. He watched with bated breaths as the babies finished off the bug and then followed the adult as it walked out of his line of sight.

Eventually, Declan was left submerged in an eerie silence. Alone with his thoughts, he couldn't stop replaying the day's events over and over in his mind. He wanted to go to sleep, but he couldn't get the image of Aspirant Lyndsey's face out of his mind, or the sound of the Star Paladin's voice as he gave out his last command. He'd seen a few of his brothers and sisters fall in combat, but that was nothing compared to what he'd experienced on the vertibird. Tears started form in the corners of his eyes but he did nothing to try and wipe them away. Curled up on the floorboard of the car, he eventually succumbed to exhaustion.

Declan woke the next morning to a horrible back ache and terrible stomach pains. He grimaced as he carefully stretched his legs back out across the center console on the floorboard. Two perks to being in the Brotherhood were that you never went hungry and everyone got their own bunk to sleep on. Raising up onto an elbow, he dug into his pants pocket. The only possession he had besides his weapons was a parcel of radstag jerky his uncle had given him before he left. He pulled a piece out and chewed it as he gently wiped the dirt and debris off of the injured side of his face. He knew that he needed to get up and move if he was going to find his way back home, so he slowly pulled himself up to look out the windows of the car. Much like the day before, the landscape was hidden behind a thick haze and the morning sun was lighting it up so much that it was near impossible to see through. It was quiet out. He didn't hear any kind of noise to suggest he had company, so he climbed out of the car and stepped gingerly down onto the ground. Placing a hand on his lower back, he grimaced as he tried to stretch and stand up straighter. He felt exhausted despite the fact that he was fairly certain he'd slept for hours.

It was foggy and the air felt very thick. Between the trees and the cloud cover, not only was the sun blocked out, but, much like yesterday, he still couldn't find the Prydwen in the sky. He stood in the center of the street and looked around. The river was nowhere to be seen. He wasn't even sure which direction he'd come from. Still, there was no need to panic. He was smart enough to know that the Brotherhood had to be aware that his vertibird was missing, and they would be out looking for it. He decided that his best chance at being found would be if he stayed on the roads, so Declan picked a direction at random and began walking. If he was lucky, he would run into a search party or one of the Minuteman Settlements his uncle was always talking about. Maybe he would luck out and find a checkpoint. He'd heard a few people talking about them on the Prydwen. According to the chatter, checkpoints were popping up everywhere.

He walked until the fog made it too hard to see his immediate surroundings. After stumbling over a few piles of busted bricks and debris that he couldn't see very well, and what he believed to be a prewar children's toy, he decided to take a break and rest on the side of the road. He climbed up onto a rusted car to wait out the poor weather conditions. He contemplated going in another direction because the road he was on felt like it was sloping uphill, but then again, he had gone up and down numerous hills before he'd found the car he spent last night in, so he had no idea if he should clear this hill or not. Taking out another piece of jerky, he ate it as he looked around. A drink would be nice. He hadn't had anything since he fell into the river and his mouth and lips were starting to feel really dry. Above him, a few rays of sunlight were able to pierce through the fog. It wasn't much—all it did was illuminate the fog and make it more difficult to see through—but for a brief moment, he felt a renewed bit of hope that things would be alright. That hopeful feeling didn't last too long.

While Declan was contemplating if he could figure out which way east was based on the way the sun was lighting up the fog, a light breeze picked up and he was suddenly overwhelmed by a putrid musk. A breeze of any kind was a welcome thing, but his time in the field had taught him what that smell meant. Jumping to his feet, he spun around on the hood of the car. Though it was difficult to see, he could make out a few distinct figures just beyond the end of the vehicle. They didn't stand entirely upright, and two of them were leaned a bit to one side.

They were ferals.

Declan knew that if he could see three, there were probably another two or three somewhere out of sight. The thought occurred to him that he only had two bullets and his only weapons training had been with a laser pistol and not the 10mm that he had at his disposal. The ferals grew still, giving him a brief moment to wonder if they'd been following his scent all along or if he'd surprised them by standing up. All he could do was stare back at their silhouettes. He tried to pick out which one looked to be the closest and then he raised his gun. Holding his breath, he fired both bullets.

He honestly had no idea if either bullet hit. The pack lurched towards him when they heard the gunfire. Two of them moved significantly faster than the others and Declan leapt from the car up onto a raised embankment, running as fast as he could. He could hear their snarls and hisses as they pursued him. For the most part his plan to slow them down on the uneven ground had worked, but it had very quickly worn him out as well. Racing through the fog, he bumped into a few downed trees and had some difficulty navigating the wet terrain. He rolled his ankle and tumbled downhill into a campsite.

At first, all he registered was the sharp pain in his ankle. Then he realized that he'd ended up at someone's camp site. Before him was a small fire and two makeshift tents. He was surrounded by discarded gear and chems. Curious, he reached over and picked up an inhaler of some sort, oblivious to the person stirring in the sleeping bag behind him. Not that far away he could hear the ferals as they closed in. He hadn't run far enough.

"Who the fuck are you?" a raider asked as he jumped up from his sleeping bag and grabbed a gun.

"Run!" Declan shouted as he pushed himself off the ground and took off. He stumbled a few feet away, his ankle still hurting.

"What?"

"Oh shit!" a second raider exclaimed as she lunged for her machete and defended the camp against the feral ghouls.

The pack of ferals descended on the camp and ripped and mauled at anything that wasn't one of them. Four of the feral ghouls attacked the raiders, but the fifth ghoul went after Declan, its arms flapping oddly at its side as it moved at an incredibly fast speed.

Declan shoved himself up off of the ground and tried to run again. The feral lashed out, hooking its slender rotten fingers into one of the pockets on his battlecoat. He was thrown a few feet through the air and landed unceremoniously on his left shoulder. A pain jolted down his spine that was so powerful that it knocked the wind out of him. He was only vaguely aware of the frantic shouts and gunshots coming from the camp as he stared up at the trees in a daze. All he could think about was the fact that he needed to get a hold of his knife, and that he couldn't lose sight of the feral, no matter how black things started to get.

Fingers finding the handle of his mother's lucky combat knife, he whipped it out as the feral descended upon him. He slashed it across the front of it's neck and chest. The disgusting creature fell on top of him, and he kicked it off with his foot. It tumbled onto the ground beside him but gripped his right arm fiercely. It started gnawing and biting down his arm in a crazed frenzy with it's soulless eyes rolled back into it's head. Declan lost his hold on his knife in the struggle, and he rolled around on the dirt and damp vegetation as he fought to free himself from the abomination. The ghoul was putting a considerable amount of pressure on his arm, but thanks to his coat, it hadn't punctured his skin – yet. He yelled and screamed incoherently as he wrestled his way on top of the deranged animal and fought past the pain in his left shoulder to grab his knife. He had his blade but his grip was weak.

A sharp and excruciating pain pierced through his hand when the ghoul finally gnawed its way down his arm and off the edge of his sleeve. Declan screamed out and fought to get away, but the feral reacted to the taste of blood as if it were rejuvenated. Clutching the knife for dear life, he began stabbing the ghoul anywhere he could until it let go of him and he could flee. There was a ghoul to his left, knelt over the bloodied body of a dead raider, and when Declan ran past, it scampered forward and pursued him. He plowed into someone while making his escape, but the only thing that registered about them was their trench coat as they pulled out their weapon.

A single gunshot fired behind him. Cowardly or not, Declan didn't look back to see who the stranger was. He didn't even look back to see if any of the raiders had survived. Chances were if they did, they would've killed him afterward anyway. He changed directions and ran as hard as he could until his ankle threatened to give out on him. Surprisingly, it was a growing knot in his left thigh that forced him to stop. He stumbled over a downed tree and resigned himself to take a moment to catch his breath and take inventory of his injuries. The ghoul that had attacked him still had some of it's teeth. Declan's palm and the back of his hand was a fleshy mangled mess because of it. He bit back tears as he adjusted the way he was sitting. Back when he was fighting the ghoul off, he'd accidentally stabbed himself just above the left knee. At the time the adrenaline and the ghoul chewing on his hand had distracted him, but now the leg was really starting to hurt. He felt himself growing a bit sick and dizzy as he looked at all of the places his body was bleeding from. He gingerly held his injured hand with his good hand, taking care to fold the loose skin back over the exposed tissue.

There was no avoiding it, he was going to pass out. Just when he was about to lie down on the ground, a cloth sack was pulled over his head and someone lifted him up into the air.


	3. Karma

Chapter Specific Warning: I apologize for how long it took to publish this chapter but it was partly due to the content I decided to include in it. Everything I wrote was based on in-game content, but I wanted to take a moment to warn any of you that have a sensitivity to cannibalism or gore, that it is included in this chapter. I have never written a story with this sort of thing in it and it was a bit difficult. This will be the darkest chapter in the story, and the only chapter with this specific content in it. I just felt that I needed to put a warning out, just in case it bothered anyone..

Squire Lost

Karma

The room was sparsely furnished with just a bed, a busted up dresser, and a broken mirror on the wall. The rest of it's contents appeared to be random bits of armor and broken pieces of junk. In the center of the exterior wall was a lone, boarded up window with daylight streaming in between the planks of wood. A vine of some kind snaked its way in through a gap in the plaster above the window and spread across the ceiling above. A thick layer of dust coated nearly everything and what bit of light came in did relatively little to brighten up the small space.

Declan slowly opened his eyes and gave them a moment to adjust to the dim light. He grimaced as he slowly sat up. His leg and hand still hurt. Bracing himself on his good hand, he paused when he felt something cold and metallic under his palm. Looking down, he realized he was handcuffed to a metal-framed bed. He tugged against the cuffs a few times as the realization that he was someone's prisoner sank in. He pulled against the handcuffs, trying to decide if he could get his hand out without hurting himself. The tugging on his part had created red marks on his skin – then he realized he could see his skin. Where was his coat? He looked down to see what else had been stolen from him.

His boots and socks were over against the far wall and he had nothing on him but his regulation pants and undershirt. His mother's knife was nowhere to be seen. He'd already lost his father's compass, and now they'd taken his mother's knife. Angry, he began pulling against the handcuffs again, testing both the cuffs and the bed frame for weaknesses. When he could find none, he turned his wrist over and moved his injured hand to help him better examine the handcuffs. It was then that he realized that someone had wrapped his wounded hand in what looked to be a fairly clean bandana. He'd bled through it, but it was still a really nice gesture for someone that was holding him against his will.

He ceased his efforts to break free and listened when he heard feminine voices from somewhere else in the building. They were distant but he could still make them out. They were talking about what they were cooking, arguing about whether or not to add tatoes to whatever they had on the stove. He heard someone bang a spoon against a pot and he wondered what they were fixing because he didn't recognize the smell that was wafting over into his room. His stomach rumbled as he continued listening.

"All I'm saying is that I think we shouldn't jump the gun, Ma," a girl raised her voice. "He's got good muscle tone, he's got good colorin', he's got all his teeth."

"Exactly. He's good meat," a woman with a scratchy voice dismissed.

"First off, you don't put good meat in a stew. Second, he's ghoul-bit," the girl said bluntly. "We don't have no business eatin' infected meat."

His blood ran cold. They talking about eating him.

"Ugh."

"I mean it, you saw what happened to Patrick and Daisy. They ate some of that bad meat and caught the fever. He got the bumps and was dead within the month. Daisy was sick for six months before Monty put her out of her misery."

"Well if he's got the fever he's no good to you alive either," the older woman stated.

"But Ma, if he's healthy, he could be really useful. He's gonna be big and strong," she argued. "He'd be real handy for when Lonnie and her gang come around."

The older woman made a disapproving grunt. "That backstabbing bitch should've gone down with Jared in Corvega. She's a two-face traitor is what she is."

"But she's got her own gang now and that's all the more reason we need him."

"You can't trust him to defend this place against the likes of Lonnie and her gang. He isn't one of us."

"How do you know? He was just south of one of the campsites and he had jet on him."

"Because I know every child born to, or taken into, the raider families in this area and he isn't one of them."

"And what is he then? A farmer? Please," the girl's voice dripped with annoyance.

"Well whatever he is, he's obviously been taken care of and well clothed. Someone will be looking for him."

"They won't find him."

There was a long pause and Declan sat still, listening intently.

"Why are you so determined to keep him? If Lonnie and her gang come around again, Remi and Monty will help hold them off. We don't need him bringing unwanted attention."

"He's… you know."

"You like him," the older woman accused.

"So what if I do?"

"He's just a boy."

"He's a healthy boy. And when we grow up, he'd make healthy babies."

The sound of spoon clanging against something metal echoed through the building, and it appropriately summed up how Declan was feeling about the new subject of conversation. "Girl, you are thirteen."

"Yeah so? And Cici is sixteen, and I saw that last baby she had with Bruno. It had six fingers on one hand and it's face didn't look right. Doc Anderson said it wasn't gonna make it. I don't want a sickly baby. He's healthy, he's got thick hair, all his teeth, he's strong for his size... you saw Sonny and Remi wrestlin' with him to bring him in. He's good stock. Not to mention... he's real pretty."

"Fine," the older woman conceded in an annoyed tone. "But you're responsible for him. If he steps out of line one time, you'll be the one killing him. Do you understand me? And you're also gonna cut up the next one Sonny brings in."

"I promise!"

"Here. If you're going to keep him you'd better feed him."

"Thanks Ma!"

Declan lay on his side, using the fingers of his right hand to try and pry the cuffs off of his left hand. It was no use. He pulled at the handcuffs again. He couldn't stay with these crazy cannibals and he certainly wasn't going to hang around long enough to be their breeding stock. Still, it did make him feel a little better to know that he wasn't literally going to end up on their chopping block.

Loud footsteps rushed towards his room. Unable to get away, he pretended to be asleep. The footsteps stopped abruptly at the doorway, and he could feel himself being watched. The food smelled much stronger now, and he was certain she'd brought some with her. He was so hungry but he was also pretty sure whatever she had, he wouldn't be able to bring himself to eat. He heard her place a few items on the floor and It took everything he had to remain calm, especially when the bed dipped and he could feel her climbing in next to him. An arm slid around his waist and then she laid their head on his shoulder. After a moment, she started to drag her fingertip along the length of his nose, starting up at the bridge and slowly making her way down to the tip. The motion was slow and repetitive, and he found himself unable to resist the urge to open his eyes and push the hand away. He hissed when he bumped her hand with his injured hand. Clenching his teeth, he spared a glance over at her. She wasn't anywhere near as scary looking as he'd imagined. In fact, she was surprisingly pretty.

Her face was inches away from his own. Their eyes met and excitement danced in her dull, gray eyes. "Mama said I could keep you," she smiled triumphantly as she tapped the tip of his nose with her finger. He understood her obsession with his teeth – she looked to be missing a few and she wasn't that much older than he was. She had significant scarring on one side of her face and he couldn't help but wonder what had happened to her. Had it not been for the fact that he knew she and her mother were cooking people a few rooms over, he would've felt very sympathetic towards her. "I wrapped your hand," she informed him as she sat up. "And I brought you something to eat and drink."

He managed a nod as she leaned over him to retrieve something from the floor. He closed his eyes, not wanting her to get too close to him after she'd made that baby comment. She eventually sat up and pulled him up to a sitting position. Lifting a chipped mug up to his lips, she took hold of his chin and began tilting the mug regardless of if he was going to willingly drink or not. He did. He coughed a few times and some of the water ran down his neck and onto his shirt. It tasted stale, but he was desperate so he didn't object. He brought his wounded hand up to cover the hand she held the mug with. Once the mug was empty, he wiped his mouth with his fingers. She watched him expectantly as she placed the empty mug on the floor.

"...Thank you," he offered quietly.

"You're welcome," she beamed. "I'll get another wrap for your hand after supper." She seemed pleasant, which confused him. He'd assumed his captors were raiders but she was too nice to fit the general stereotype, regardless of the fact that she was wearing tattered leathers and a pipe pistol.

"Are you a raider?"

"You have to ask?" she grinned. "That is so adorable," she said as she pulled her blonde hair up and secured it with some bobby pins she'd pulled from her pocket. "I'm just a girl who's trying to survive life in the wasteland," she told him. "Ma and me don't run with any of the major gangs, but we do what we've got to do to survive. And if that makes us raiders, then I guess we're raiders."

He nodded, more to stay on her good side so he didn't become supper.

"I'm Karma," she told him as she knelt to pick up another mug, this one with a spoon in it. "Eat this. You need your strength."

Declan looked down at the grey and brown mush in the mug. There were a few lumps that he assumed were vegetables or chunks of meat, but it certainly didn't look appetizing. "I'm Declan," he introduced himself.

"Take it, Declan," she insisted, placing the mug on the bed by his good hand. "Eat," she repeated.

He took hold of the mug's handle which seemed to appease her. "Um.. can you take the handcuffs off so I can go to the bathroom?" He raised his left wrist to show her the handcuffs. She grinned and shook her head.

"I wasn't born yesterday," she dismissed his request. "Can't chance having a pretty thing like you running off," she smiled as she put in one last bobby pin. She leaned down and put a hand on the back of his head. He was suddenly aware of a new bruise, which explained his slight headache. She leaned in and quickly kissed his forehead before pulling away. He sat very still, unsure how to process the fact that a raider had just kissed him. "If you've got to go, there's a bucket," she gestured towards the floor. "And if you need to wipe, there's some old pre-war money under the bed."

"Thanks," he made a face.

She rolled her eyes. "It's not that big of a deal," she told him. "I'll be back later with a fresh bandage but I've got to go reinforce the windows and doors downstairs. Wouldn't want the ghouls to get in and finish the job they started." She didn't wait for a reply and he didn't offer one. Were they in a heavily infested ghoul area? The thought made him even more nervous than he already was. Once she was gone, he looked down at the contents inside the mug. He wasn't touching that stew for fear of what was in it. He also wasn't about to use her bucket. If he made it back to the Prydwen, he was going to make certain to tell everyone that not all abominations were non-humans.

* * *

Huddled around the table in Maxson's quarters, Lancer-Captain Kells, Elder Maxson, and Proctor Quinlan stared at the marker that Kells had placed on a map. Standing with his back against the door, Proctor Teagan loomed over them, his lips pressed in a thin flat line and his arms crossed firmly across his chest.

"This is where the vertibird went down," Kells said as he explained the marker on the map.

Quinlan made a face and leaned forward in his seat. Emmett leaned forward on his lap and swatted the marker with his paw. Quinlan quickly pulled him away.

"Most of the vertibird is in the Malden River, just north of where it branches off of the Mystic. The tail and part of one of the wings is on the other side of some sort of retaining wall at the water's edge," Kells stated. "Our men on the ground said there was some hellish fighting going on and requested reinforcements. The Minutemen appeared to be engaging hostiles at a well fortified location nearby."

Maxson scowled as he stared at the map. "Do they believe the Minutemen were involved in what happened to the vertibird?"

"The Minutemen? No sir, based on the information they've gathered, the Minutemen launched their attack, as retaliation, after the vertibird went down," Kells told him.

"Have any members of the team been found?" Maxson asked.

"Initiate Harris' body was recovered. Everyone else is still unaccounted for."

"To get there, your pilot had to deviate from the flight plan," Teagan frowned, irritation evident in his voice.

"That is correct," Kells replied.

"Why would he do that?" Maxson asked. "They had a Squire on board. Did they get disoriented in the fog?"

"They shouldn't have," Kells answered. "All of the vertibirds are equipped with instruments to assist the pilots in poor visibility situations."

"Super Mutants," Quinlan grumbled.

Teagan looked over at him. "It was a low risk training mission, they shouldn't have deviated to go engage that sort of enemy at such a well fortified location."

"You're familiar with this location?" Maxson asked Quinlan.

Quinlan nodded, acknowledging both of them. "My Scribes haven't been inside, but they've been in the area. That place is known as West Everett Estates. It is a heavily reinforced super mutant fortress. Their leader is a mutant named Hammer. He's a particularly good shot with a missile launcher and he does keep in contact with nearby groups of mutants. I've come into possession of a substantial number of super mutant notes. They communicate with each other fairly regularly. They're organizing. Hammer could've ambushed the vertibird after another group of mutants caused them to deviate north. They did have a Squire on board and Star Paladin Reeves was on the mend, they probably would've been looking to avoid an altercation of that nature. Of course, this is all just speculation."

"Where are these other super mutants?" Maxson asked.

"The nearest documented group is about right here, sir," Quinlan pointed out a location on the map.

"That speculation would seem to offer some explanation as to why the vertibird was in the area," Kells frowned.

"And if our teams have reported a substantial Minuteman force already there, that allows us a little extra time for our men to gather the supplies they'll need to better handle such a heavily fortified area," Quinlan offered. "This isn't like the raid on the Institute, the Minutemen can't just set a charge on a reactor and run. Sure, they have artillery capabilities, but using that on a location that may hold hostages would be counterproductive to their purpose. They're going to have to use farmers to muscle their way past this place's defenses and then fight off a large group of heavily super mutants. Honestly, I don't know if the men they have in place are capable of that. They had no time to plan or gather gear, and they've had, at most, minimal basic training. At the very least in this initial assault, the Minutemen are doing us a great service. There's certainly no harm in using their men as expendable soldiers to wear down their defenses prior to our men moving in. I know you aren't a fan of the Minutemen sir, but this does spare Brotherhood lives," Quinlan directed his attention to Maxson.

"Have any reinforcements been sent in yet?" Maxson asked.

"I've got two teams gearing up as we speak and Proctor Ingram is helping them with their equipment," Kells answered.

"I'm going with them," Teagan said.

"Proctor, I understand your concern, but we have plenty of soldiers that can handle this. You can best serve the Brotherhood here."

"With all due respect, Elder, that Squire is my flesh and blood family and I can best serve him on the ground. I've already assigned someone to man the cage in my absence," Teagan told him.

Maxson's expression softened. "Teagan, we have never lost a Squire and we're not about to start now."

"I know, but you can't make that guarantee right now. I'm going to find him. I will personally see to it. Order me back to my cage if you like, but I'm still going to go down there because he's my nephew. Maybe, if you're lucky enough to have a kid of your own, you'll understand. But he's the only part of my brother that I have left and I promised his Mama when we left the Citadel that he'd be taken care of. It's already been almost twenty-four hours. If he's alive, he's more than likely injured and unarmed. He won't last long on his own."

"We don't know that he's on his own," Kells interrupted him.

"If he wasn't, they would've already checked in at a Minuteman settlement or checkpoint by now. They're all over that area and our guys on the ground know it." He turned his attention back to Maxson and lowered his tone, "Now I've never agreed with your no firearms policy for the Squires out in the field, but I always backed you up because it was my duty to support you. But if anything happens to him, if he dies down there, that'll make two deaths that'll be on your head."

Maxson stood abruptly, knocking his chair backwards onto the floor. He looked as if he'd been punched in the gut. He paced the small space between his bed and the couch before focusing his glare on Teagan and pointing a finger in his direction. "Get out," he growled. For a tense moment, the two men just stared at each other. Kells remained silent as he stared down at the map. Quinlan glanced between Maxson and Teagan, uncomfortable and confused with the situation. "Get your gear and board the first vertibird heading down."

"Thank you, Elder," Teagan replied curtly as he pulled the door open and stalked back to his cage. Behind him, Teagan could hear Maxson making arrangements to take his personal vertibird out. The thought that the Elder was getting involved brought Teagan some solace. He still had a great amount of respect for Elder Maxson, even though he was currently frustrated with him. Of course that frustration paled in comparison to the frustration he had with the Lancer that had been piloting the vertibird. Unlocking his cage, he shoved the door open and began gathering ammunition and supplies. He now knew what kinds of enemies to expect down there and he wasn't going to be caught unprepared.

Scribes Danaka and Winslow watched him silently from their posts by the counter. He picked up his laser rifle and then paused. On the bottom shelf under the counter sat Declan's stuffed bear. It had been silly really, giving a twelve year old boy a stuffed toy, but it was new, recently manufactured in a factory at the Starlight settlement, and it didn't have the 200 year stench of hopelessness and despair on it. Declan slept with it, even though he'd pretended to be too old to care about it. Teagan debated whether to pack it, if any of their dogs could track, it would be very useful. He thrust it in his duffle bag when he saw Quinlan walk up to the counter.

"I'm busy," he told him as he packed a missile and a handful of grenades.

Quinlan pushed his glasses up higher as he peered into the bag. "You seem to be already packed."

"I started packing the moment I realized they had no idea where my nephew was," Teagan replied. "I'm just adding a few extra things."

"Should I have Ingram get your power armor ready?"

"I don't need power armor," Teagan told him. "It'll only slow me down."

An awkward silence filled the space between them as Teagan hooked a strap onto a missile launcher and hoisted it up over his shoulder. "Off the top of your head, is there anything besides the super mutants that might pose a significant threat in that area?" It never hurt to compare notes.

Quinlan brought a hand up to his mouth as he tried to recall everything. "There's a place called Med-Tek. If you miss the sign, it's pretty easily identifiable by the big perimeter wall around the property and the dozens of ferals just meandering about. The place is like a magnet to them. Not only is it infested, but we have it on very reliable sources that some of the ferals in that area might have been test subjects for weaponized viruses during the war."

Teagan frowned. "Lovely." He grabbed one last stimpack and slid it in his pocket.

"There is also a significantly higher population of insects in the area," Quinlan warned him. "Some of the swarms my men have encountered have been quite voracious and quite large."

"Thank you, Quinlan."

"Might I ask," Quinlan whispered. "To what were you referring to when you were speaking with Elder Maxson?"

Teagan glanced around to see who was nearby. Aside from Danaka and Winslow, they were alone. "They didn't tell you when you transferred?"

Quinlan shook his head as he watched Teagan lock the cage with the pair of scribes inside. "Who didn't tell me what?"

Teagan hesitated. As much as he liked Proctor Quinlan, he was suddenly reminded that Quinlan was an outsider. He was sent east by the West Coast Brotherhood to gather information about the legendary Arthur Maxson. There was talk of putting together an actual book about him.

"I'm sorry," Teagan told him. "But it's confidential, and if they didn't tell you, well it isn't something that I'm willing to discuss."

* * *

On his second, third, and fifth field missions, Declan had the good fortune of being able to go out with Knight Miller and Paladin Danse. The great thing about the Knight was that he was always getting distracted—taking detours to different places—and anyone traveling with him got to go too. The great thing about Paladin Danse, aside from the fact that he was Paladin Danse, was that he was always enthusiastic about seeing where the Knight was going to lead them next. Captain Kells must not have had an issue with it, because he was never upset when simple cleansing missions took days and was always eager to read detailed reports from the Squires about the settlements and various locations they discovered while on the ground. The Knight and Captain Kells really seemed to get along well.

All the Squires wanted to go on missions with Knight Miller. On every mission, the Knight would go to great lengths to try and teach the Squires basic survival skills that the Brotherhood didn't. One of his most emphasized skills was lock picking. It was a skill so emphasized that the Knight insisted that all the Squires wear bobby pins on the collars of their undershirts. It had become so routine that Declan had forgotten his were there until he'd seen Karma fixing her hair.

Putting his bobby pin in his mouth, he bit down on it and pulled the tip off. Spitting it out, he bit down on one end and pulled the other to open it up a bit. His hand ached as he held the tiny pin and pushed it straight in the lock on the handcuffs. He took slow and controlled breaths to push aside the pain, once he was free, he would be able to use his other hand again.

Pulling the bobby pin down, he bent the tip and then pulled it out. He knew he could do this, Knight Miller had trained him to do this. Pushing the bent tip back in and under the metal lip of the lock, he moved it counter-clockwise and added a bit of pressure until he heard a faint click. His hand burned and his heart pounded with excitement as he tried to reposition the bobby pin. Instead, he dropped it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was so excited his hand was trembling. Picking the bobby pin up off the mattress, he inserted it back into the hole and moved it clockwise until he heard another click and the handcuff fell open.

His heart felt as if it were about to beat out of his chest as he pulled himself free and tiptoed over to his boots. Pulling his socks and boots on, he laced them as quickly and tightly as he could. The cool squishiness of his socks were unpleasant, but it was a minor annoyance compared to his current situation. Stepping lightly, he held his breath as he slipped out of the bedroom. He found his coat, along with his pistol and combat knife, lying across a table. It was evident that the raiders that lived here were messy, unorganized hoarders of rather useless gear. If he had to guess, he assumed they stripped it off the bodies of their victims. Pulling his coat back on, he left it hanging open as he tucked the gun and knife away and ducked down to move into the next room.

His adrenaline level was so high that he could hardly keep himself from stumbling around the bits of broken furniture and junk in the dark, cluttered hallway. Reaching what must've been their kitchen, he stopped short when he saw a bloodied human rib cage sitting on a tray on the kitchen table. There was an assortment of saws and knives next to the tray and an enamel bucket filled with blood on the floor. Horror momentarily took his breath away. He brought his right hand up to cover his mouth. When he finally inhaled, he gagged on the smell of the feral that still lingered on his injured hand.

He averted his gaze to the floor and took a deep breath to calm himself. In doing so, he inhaled the thick, and distinct smell of human stew. Fighting his gag reflex again, he took slow, measured breaths as he tiptoed along the wall farthest from the stove. The floor tiles were covered in dirt and blood splatter. He clenched his teeth as he tried not to pay too much attention to it. It felt as if the room were closing in. The air felt thick enough to crush him. Each breath grew a little harder as he neared the end of the room. He was almost out of the horrible room, when he realized the smell of blood and decay was beginning to overpower the smell of the food on the stovetop.

There was a small room adjacent to the kitchen. The door sat partially open, and he peered inside to make sure there were no raiders. He immediately regretted it. Inside the room was a sink, a bathtub, a toilet, and an assortment of metal and enamel buckets. They all contained various parts of dismembered bodies. Judging by the tile, at one point before the war, this had probably been a very nice bathroom. Now it was horrifying and disgusting, but sadly, thanks to the super mutants, not the most grotesque thing he'd ever seen. The floor was covered in blood, the porcelain and tile was hideously stained and discolored, and the buckets were overflowing with blood and various organs.

His gaze fixated on a hand that lay on the floor. He felt himself growing faint and unable to tear himself away from the splintered bone and loose flesh jutting out of the wrist. He knew he had to make himself keep moving but his body wasn't cooperating. While he had seen worse, he'd never been in a situation like this alone. On some of the severed appendages he could see bite marks, and he was fairly certain they were human. Tears threatened to obscure his vision as he tore himself away from the bathroom and went through an open doorway. He reached the top of a staircase and peered down into the dusty darkness. He couldn't see anyone but he did occasionally hear a cough or the distant sound of someone's voice.

These people were bigger abominations than everything else in the Commonwealth. At least the ferals were just mindless creatures and the super mutants were monsters. These people were humans and they were choosing to do this to other human beings. Elder Maxson had said that humanity needed to be saved from itself, but Declan had never imagined that it was because of this—he couldn't imagine that Elder Maxson had meant it in this context either. Gripping the railing tight enough to turn his knuckles white and make his hand start to bleed again, Declan tiptoed down the stairs as quietly as he could. He stayed low to make himself harder to detect and kept his gaze down so his eyes wouldn't be blinded by the light from upstairs.

He made it halfway down the stairs before he heard the older woman start scolding the girl again. They were in another room and he could hear things being moved around. After a moment he heard someone start banging away with a hammer. Daylight streamed through a cracked doorway at the base of the stairs. He was so close, he could see the back exit to the building. Taking a deep breath, he willed himself not to rush down the rickety stairs and then stopped abruptly when he saw a lean and lanky raider slouched on the couch against the wall. The raider looked over at him, the expression on his face screamed that he was under the influence of something powerful.

"You're up," he mumbled as he got comfortable on the couch and laid his pistol across his lap. "Karma fought so hard for you kid. Welcome to the family." Declan watched silently as the raider fumbled with a tin he'd pulled out from under one of the cushions. He fumbled with a box of mentats before spilling the contents onto the floor. "Well shit," he laughed as he tumbled off the couch and began picking them up. "I was gonna share…" Declan kept a close watch on him as he slowly made his way towards the door. He wondered what kind of cocktail the raider was on but he wasn't interested enough to hang around and find out.

When he reached the back door he pulled it just open enough to squeeze out. A string of cans fell from somewhere overhead, announcing his action, and he bolted towards the densest patch of the fog he could find. He covered quite a bit of ground before the other raiders realized it was him who'd slipped out and not their drugged up friend. By the time they started shouting in alarm, he was almost totally out of earshot and completely surrounded by trees. The ground was a bit uneven in places but he was determined to put as much distance between him and the house of cannibals as he could.

He crossed a street, a few downed trees, and he fell twice trying to get through some rocky uneven areas, but he kept going. At one point he stumbled across a female radstag and her young, but he didn't stop running and they didn't have a chance to react to his presence before he was gone. It wasn't until the burning in his leg was too overwhelming that he collapsed against a rusted guardrail and desperately tried to catch his breath.

With his uninjured cheek resting against the abrasive metal, he held up his wounded hand and stared at the bandana. Why couldn't he have been found by a friendly farmer or a Minuteman out on patrol? Even a Gunner might have been convinced to keep him alive if they thought they might get paid for saving him. His hand was probably going to end up infected. In all fairness, his hand was probably already infected. He just hoped he didn't get that fever that Karma and her mother were talking about. He looked over his shoulder, scared that the raiders would be behind him, but all he saw were trees and dry grass. In the distance he could hear vertibirds. It was far too foggy for him to see them and it was frustrating. He momentarily considered trying to follow the sound of the vertibirds but his legs were too weak and wobbly.

That was alright though. Multiple vertibirds more than likely meant Brotherhood boots on the ground. He'd be found before he knew it. He just needed to stick to the roads and stay away from any future packs of ferals and cannibalistic raiders. He just hoped they found him before nightfall.

Declan continued to lay propped on the guard rail. He honestly couldn't imagine how regular civilians survived this place. If his short experience on his own had taught him anything, it was that the Commonwealth still needed the Brotherhood, Institute or not. There were so many dangers still lurking all over the place. He stretched out his legs as he caught his breath. His ankle felt better but his hand, leg, and head were throbbing. In the distance, he could hear a robotic rumbling. He sighed in resignation. "What now?" he groaned as he pushed himself to his knees. Catching sight of a sentry-bot, his heart skipped a beat. Where was the fog when he needed it? Could he play dead? Declan scrambled behind the guardrail, his body too sore for another hasty escape. If he'd had any doubt before, he certainly didn't now—the Commonwealth was trying to kill him.


	4. The Slog

**Squire Lost  
** **  
**The Slog

Of all the things the Commonwealth had thrown at Declan in the twenty four hours since his vertibird went down, this was both the craziest, and the cutest.

"So, you wanna make a deal, or what?" the little brown-haired girl asked him for a second time.

Declan managed a nod and spared one last glance at the Sentry-Bot that loomed over her.

Gripping the guardrail with his good hand, he pushed himself up to a standing position and dusted the dirt off of his pants. The dirt stuck to dried blood didn't dust off. He made a face and ignored it. His legs felt weak and wobbly but he wasn't going to miss an opportunity to make friends with someone that had a sentry-bot protecting them. "Are you out here all alone?"

"Hardly, Gus looks out for me, so don't get any ideas." She poked her finger into his chest for emphasis and he tried not to grin at how cute she was. "Now are you buyin' or not?"

Declan made a show of going through his empty pockets with his good hand. "What kind of stuff do you buy and sell?"

"All sorts of stuff," she smiled proudly.

He paused his digging, only able to produce the bag of jerky.

"What's that?" she asked as she unfolded a tattered tablecloth and began placing her goods on it for display.

"It's radstag jerky," he answered. "A friend of my Uncle's made it at one of the settlements. It's real good. It doesn't have any rads," told her.

She looked up at him from her seat on the tablecloth. Taking the parcel, she sniffed it before counting the pieces inside. "Rad-free food will fetch quite a few caps. Rad-free food from a reputable provider like the Minutemen will fetch even more," she told him.

"The Minutemen?"

"I recognize the smell," she told him. "This stuff is made back at the Abernathy Settlement. Radstag are all over the place there." She sat the parcel of jerky on the tablecloth beside her. "What kind of gun do you have? I have some ammunition."

"You want to trade my jerky for bullets?"

"That's how these sorts of things work. Come on, sit down."

Declan glanced around, checking for any sign of Karma's band of raiders before doing as he was told. He sat down carefully, keeping pressure off of his injured leg. He cradled his right hand close to his body as she sorted all of her bullets by size. "I need 10mm," he said as he pointed one out. Her tablecloth shop was a mess, but she was adorable in her flower dress. Already she seemed significantly sweeter and safer than the last girl he'd met in the Commonwealth. While she dug out all of her 10mm bullets, he sifted through her wares. She had a bobby pin, a rusted lighter, some Insta Mash, duct tape, an oven mitt, a wool cap, a carrot, and a wrench of some kind. He picked up the cap and inspected it.

"Okay," she lined up 5 bullets in front of him. "I'll give you 24 caps for the jerky, and then I'll sell you these at 2 caps each. The wool cap is worth 15." She paused and counted everything up on her fingers.

Declan studied her as she figured everything up. How had she ended up out here all alone, and with a Sentry-Bot of all things protecting her? He stared at her freckles as she scrunched her nose. Some of them were partially obscured by the dirt and grease on her face. Her hair was a dark brown, and the more she talked, the more it bounced around. She had a piece of dry grass in her hair and he resisted the urge to reach over and remove it.

"You're a cap short," she told him.

"What?" he asked.

"You need one more cap."

He looked down at the bullets, and then over at the wool cap. One would keep him warm and the other would keep him safe. He didn't want a repeat of what had happened this morning. He looked down at his injured hand, unable to shake the mental image of the ghoul and then Karma's kitchen. Blood had soaked through most of the bandana, obscuring the blue color that it was supposed to be.

"How about this," she leaned forward, her fingers brushing the leather of his coat.

"What?" he frowned and pulled back. "This coat was a gift."

She rolled her eyes before pulling a pencil out of his chest pocket. She held it up for him to see it. "There, now it's an even trade."

"Oh," he smiled sheepishly. He hadn't realized that was there. He pulled out his gun and loaded it like he'd seen his Uncle do hundreds of times before. Tucking it away, he grabbed the wool cap and put it on. He grimaced. The simple movement hurt both his hand and his head. When she started putting her things away, he stood up.

"So, are you all alone out here?" she asked him.

"I am," he answered. There was no point in lying to her; she had a functional set of eyes.

She nodded. "Well you can travel with me and Gus if you want."

He smiled. After the day he'd had, she had no idea how much her offer meant to him. "So how do I go about getting one of these things?" he asked as he reached out and touched the Sentry-Bot. The metal was warm and rough under his fingertips. The simple motion was exhilarating like he was tempting fate.

"Do not interfere with security operations," Gus fussed and moved away.

He pulled his hand back quickly. "I think I made him mad," he laughed.

"Trust me, if you made Gus mad, you'd have a hundred holes in you right now," she assured him.

He smiled but he was a little disturbed by her statement.

"My Pa programmed him. He's real good at that sort of stuff."

"With skills like that, he could have a place with the Brotherhood," he told her.

She chuckled and gave him a wry smile. "No, he couldn't."

He didn't know how to take that response, so he didn't push it. "You never told me your name."

"It's Kat," she told him. "What's yours soldier boy?"

"Soldier boy?"

"Look me in the eye and tell me you aren't a Brotherhood soldier."

"Did my recruitment speech give it away?"

"Yeah. But it was also your clothes," she told him. "The material of your pants and the fact that it doesn't have any patches. That fancy coat of yours. I don't know if you know it, but that is some very expensive leather. And your boots. Those are really nice boots. If your feet were a little bit bigger I'd tell you to watch out for the raiders. They'd kill for boots like that. They kill for less than that actually," she shrugged it off as she walked.

"Yeah, I know. I ran into some raiders this morning," he admitted quietly. He spared a glance over his shoulder, still afraid Karma or one of her friends might be following him. He moved a little closer to Gus.

"Well that explains your injuries."

He looked down at his bandaged hand and his filthy pants. "My name's Declan," he told her.

"Nice to meet you Declan," she smiled at him. "So what's your rank?"

"I'm a Brotherhood Squire," he told her. "It's the title given to children born into the Brotherhood. Soon I'll graduate to Knight though."

"Will they give you one of those armored suits?"

"Yeah," he smiled excitedly.

"Good. You look like you could use all the armor you can find."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he frowned.

"Shh," she held out her arm to stop him.

On the road in front of them, an emaciated, leathery mongrel stood in a clearing. It bared it's teeth and snarled as it stalked closer. It was followed by a second mongrel that slowly came into focus as it stepped out of the fog. Kat dropped to the ground as Gus's guns whirled to life. Declan barely had time to drop down behind her. He covered his ears as the Sentry-Bot's gatling guns began firing just inches above his head. The sound of each shot rattled around in his skull as Kat's personal protector demolished the creatures that had been threatening her. By the time Gus stopped shooting, the mongrels were destroyed, their carcasses scattered across the road in bloody heaps. Kat went to one of the larger piles of tissue and opened a cavity so she could look inside.

"What are you doing?" Declan made a face. He moved his hand to keep Gus from running over his fingers as he watched Kat.

"Gettin' loot out of his gut," she told him. "There ain't a creature in the Commonwealth that isn't going to have something worth selling. Go ahead," she gestured to the scattered remains of the second mongrel.

Doing as he was told, he slowly stood up and pushed past the dizziness and pounding in his head. He walked over to where she'd gestured and knelt down on weak and shaky legs. The last thing he wanted was to pass out or topple over in front of her. It was important that he looked strong in front of her, he was representing the Brotherhood of Steel. He also didn't want her to think he was a wimp. Fighting a grimace, he stuck his left hand into the mongrel's gut. He was not prepared for the texture that he encountered as he moved the tattered slivers of flesh with his fingers. Immediately he was overcome with flashbacks to the storage room in the raider house. He closed his eyes and tried not to recall the things that he had seen. Would the flesh of the raider gang's victims have felt like the remains of the mongrel did? He imagined that they probably did.

Declan took a calming breath, trying to keep himself from looking visibly distressed. The Brotherhood had certainly never taught him how to do this on a field mission, although now that he thought about it, he had seen Knight Miller examining the corpses of creatures he'd killed on training missions. He adjusted himself on his knees, still keeping his right hand close to his body. He could do this. His hand bumped up against something that didn't feel like flesh or bone. He quickly grabbed onto it and pulled out a fork and a single cap. His 'loot' was a bit disappointing.

"I'll trade you that cap and fork for a carrot," Kat told him.

He looked up quickly, not realizing she was standing close enough to see over his shoulder. "What? This thing is bent and covered in blood and …stuff," he grimaced as he held the fork up.

"It'll wipe off," she assured him. "Next customer will never know."

He let out a strained laugh and made a mental note not to buy dishes from her. Commonwealth people were crazy and gross. "Fine. I'll give you this nice, warm, bloody fork, and one bent and bloody bottle cap, for one hopefully not bloodied, carrot."

Kat smiled. "Deal!"

He made a face as he held the items out to her and she enthusiastically took them from him. She wiped the blood off with a tattered cloth from her pocket as he slowly stood up. Oblivious to his impatience, Kat carefully placed the items in her bag before she dug around for his payment. Declan waited quietly, looking forward to that carrot more than he'd ever wanted to eat anything in his entire life.

* * *

Knelt on the edge of the Malden River, Teagan examined the crash site. Stone retaining walls lined both sides of the river's banks, and it was fairly obvious that the vertibird had hit the wall closest to the Super Mutant compound before most of it ended up in the river. The tail still laid in a crumpled heap up on the hill.

There were a half dozen soldiers with him, combing the area between the compound and the riverbank, and a handful of them were preparing to go into the water. He stared out over the water towards the Minuteman settlement on the other side. He couldn't see all the way across, thanks to the obnoxious fog that he was told was normal for this time of year, but he could hear the voices of the settlers. While most of the river was shallow, it was the deepest between the settlement and the crash site. He knew there was a dock across the water, and the thought that the settlers were trying to watch the Brotherhood's attempts to search the river frustrated him. He stood and walked along the water's edge to try and clear his mind.

He kept his weapon ready. With water on one side, and a stone wall on the other, Teagan felt vulnerable. The entire river was a death trap. Swarms of bugs bred and reproduced in the shallows, mirelurks loved the mud at the water's edge, and the damn super mutants had compounds all over. Upon landing he'd been told that the Minutemen had fought all through the night and had taken the Super Mutant fortress at around dawn. Kells and Quinlan weren't going to believe it. From what he'd heard, the Minutemen had made certain that the Super Mutant named Hammer was the first to die.

Teagan was a bit bitter he didn't get to kill every one of the abominations himself for what they'd done, but the Minutemen's initiative had saved at least one Brotherhood life. While his nephew was still unaccounted for, Knight Sloan had been found inside a fallout shelter under the compound. She'd sustained injuries but was given medical assistance by the Minutemen at the settlement across the river. It gave Teagan a shred of hope to cling to, that if Sloan could survive falling into the Super Mutant nest, Declan could've too if he'd ended up anywhere outside of it. Shortly after landing Teagan had learned that all of the dogs at the Brotherhood's disposal were attack dogs and not a damn one of them could track. It was a frustrating development to say the very least, and it dashed his greatest chance at finding Declan. He needed Dogmeat. He knew Dogmeat was a great tracker.

Leaving the rest of the Brotherhood soldiers behind, his boots shifted and sank in the gravel and mud as he walked along the water's edge. His eyes scanned both the shoreline and the clear, shallow water beside him. He was thankful the water was clear, it was a small break considering he couldn't see a damn thing on land. A few feet out, something under the water caught his attention. Keeping a firm hold on his laser rifle, he stepped shin deep into the water and reached down and picked up a Squire's glove. He turned it over in his left hand as water ran off of it. It didn't appear to be singed or damaged in any way. He waded further out into the water with a renewed sense of purpose. He wanted desperately to find more clues and hoped he didn't find a body with them.

"Proctor! You'll take on rads!" an initiate called from behind him. While he appreciated their concern, he ignored them, willing to chance it. If Declan had ended up in this river, he would've taken on many more rads than what Teagan was exposing himself to. He continued scanning the water, unable to find anything else. He looked toward the opposite shore but couldn't see anything. He returned to the water's edge and leaned against the support of a fallen tower. His nephew was gone and all he had of him was a standard issue Brotherhood glove.

It was then that it dawned on him that Declan had been wearing a not so standard liner under his uniform, a secondary protective coat. Modeled after Maxson's battlecoat, it was something Teagan had created specifically for him, to give him an increased level of protection in the field. It was by no means as heavy as the battlecoat, but for a child, it still had a considerable weight. He'd never imagined that Declan would have to swim in it. What if he hadn't been able to?

The realization dropped Teagan to a knee and he leaned against the old tower as his laser rifle fell to the mud. With all of its buttons, the coat would've been difficult to remove under the water. He brought a hand to his mouth as he weighed the likelihood that he'd contributed to his nephew's drowning while trying to protect him. He clutched Declan's glove tightly as he fought back tears. If they found his body at the bottom of the river, he would personally hunt down every Super Mutant in the Commonwealth and slaughter them and then drink himself into oblivion. He gritted his teeth and looked down at the glove. And that's when he saw it.

Something metallic jutted up from the mud at the water's edge. It was small, not much larger than a cap, and it was familiar. Still kneeling, he moved closer to the object and pulled it from the mud. Laying Declan's glove over his leg, he wiped the mud off the small object and smiled. It was his brother's compass. He held it tightly and closed his eyes. It had been pressed into a smooth area of mud. Something had been laying there. If his assumptions were right, that something had been a small body. Shoving back some of the brush, his eyes darted around the gravel and mud. Beyond the flat, smooth area were a few deeper indentations in the mud, some tracks that could've been made by crawling, a partial boot print, and a hand print. Getting down on both knees, Teagan crawled up the bank a bit and placed his gloved hand over the much smaller hand print in the wet earth. There was no question that it belonged to a child.

He stared at the small hand print, excitement building in his chest. If the Minutemen had found any other bodies after they took the Super Mutant compound, they would've said so. The mutants hadn't gotten Declan, and neither had the river. "There are tracks," he said, gesturing to the mud but nobody heard him. "There are tracks!" he shouted to the nearest Knight. "We've got a Squire out there! Inform the others!" Quickly gathering the glove and his laser rifle, Teagan sprinted up the steep hill and desperately looked for Declan's trail.

* * *

Declan continued to follow Kat and Gus as they traveled. Thankfully she walked slow because going up and down so many hills was taking a toll on his leg. He still couldn't see much thanks to the poor weather conditions, and he couldn't hear too much over the sound of Gus's rumbling either. At some point after the mongrels but before they passed their third vehicle, he'd developed a limp. Despite it, he was determined to keep up with them. He pushed the pain aside and spared a glance over at Kat. He liked her.

For the most part they'd walked in silence. He strayed to the side of the road when he caught sight of a blue flower growing on a bush. He used his mother's knife to cleanly cut the flower from the plant and then lamely trotted to catch up with Kat and Gus.

"Do not interfere with security operations," Gus warned.

"Yeah yeah, I'm not," Declan replied, no longer intimidated by the sentry-bot. He caught up to Kat and thrust the blue flower towards her. "Here," he managed, mortified that he'd offered her something without accounting for the fact that she might not like him back.

Kat took the flower and looked it over. "A hubflower," she smiled.

Declan smiled in return. "I saw it on the side of the road back there and thought you might like it." He brought his good hand up to his throat and swallowed a few times. His throat felt scratchy and irritated, he'd just add that to his growing list of ailments. He was already wounded, bleeding, had a limp, had a headache, was still dizzy, why not have a cold too? If he ever made it back to the Prydwen Captain Cade was going to keep him on bed rest for a week, maybe longer.

Kat continued to smile as she knelt down on the road and very carefully packed the flower away. He watched. He really liked her smile. She then dug through her bag and pulled out some caps. "That's worth two caps," she told him. "If you can find a double petal variety, it'll be worth three."

It took a moment for him to realize she was placing caps in his hand and not trying to hold it. When she stood back up and started walking again, Declan followed her, embarrassed that the Sentry-Bot had been a witness to that pathetic moment in his life. "Thanks," he said awkwardly. If he ever made it back to the Prydwen he might be able to buy some 200 year old bubble gum with his failed attempt at romance.

She smiled at him over her shoulder. "I'll make a trader out of you yet."

Was that what was happening? Was she teaching him a trade so he would survive in the Commonwealth? They passed some old military vehicles along a busted up section of road. They had to go out of their way to walk around some of them. There were a few crates stacked off to the side, and a Minuteman flag draped over the front of one of the trucks. Kat glanced around but didn't stop moving.

"Usually I can make sales at these checkpoints but it looks like the guys are busy right now."

He looked around and pulled his pistol out. They were casually walking through a prime ghoul ambush point and he didn't trust that one of the abominations wouldn't crawl out from under one of the vehicles. After his last encounter with a feral, he wasn't about to let his guard down.

In the distance he could hear gunfire and laser muskets. The Minutemen were nearby. He couldn't see the dispute, but he hoped the Minutemen were victorious. After they'd taken down the Institute, Declan couldn't imagine that there was a threat that the Minutemen couldn't handle.

Up ahead of them, something tall and dark loomed in the fog. He could see a faint blue glow but couldn't quite make out what it was until they were closer. Kat stopped walking and held out her hand to stop him. "The Slog?" he read aloud. "What's the –" He stopped talking and watched as a large gate slowly opened, it's hinges popping and groaning in protest. He'd seen gates like these before. A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

"It's a Minuteman settlement," Kat informed him. "Prior to that, it was a farm run exclusively by ghouls. It's the only place in the whole Commonwealth that grows tarberries."  
Declan was interested in the tarberries –the carrot had done little to fill his empty stomach – but he wasn't comfortable in a place where he'd be surrounded by ghouls. He stopped just inside the gate unable to force himself to go any farther. His legs felt weak and heavy, as if they were made of lead.

The visibility wasn't much better inside, but he could make out a Brahmin trough over by a tree, and a few chairs over by one of the perimeter walls. A ghoul sat in one of those chairs. He watched as she quickly reassembled her pipe pistol and grabbed a handful of ammo. He fixated on her face, unable to tear his eyes away from the layers of scarring the radiation burns had left in their wake. Despite knowing that she wasn't feral, all he could see were flashes of the ghoul that had attacked him that morning. They had very similar skin tones and he couldn't stop thinking about the deranged way the feral had run and the way it's lifeless eyes had rolled back into it's head. He crossed his arms and  
tucked his hands under them protectively.

"I'm gettin' real tired of this shit," a male ghoul complained in a deep scratchy voice. "I'd be all for wipin' them off the face of the Commonwealth if the General would just give the damn order." The ghoul burst through the fog as he rushed towards the gate. Declan moved out of the way, but the ghoul ran into Kat. Clad in head-to-toe combat armor, he grabbed Kat's arm to steady her so she didn't fall down. "Stay inside little sister, it's gonna get real ugly before we're through with them."

"Look out kids," another ghoul called out from behind them. Declan stumbled to the side as one of the guards quickly descended his post and followed the other ghoul outside the gate. Given they weren't as grotesque as the feral ghouls, they still looked enough like them to give him chills. He was having a difficult time being in the settlement. In fact, he was starting to feel panicked. His chest tightened and his breathing became a bit labored. He needed to leave. He needed to flee. The female ghoul ran past them as well, rushing off to battle in little more than a tattered old dress.

"They're all ghouls?" he managed..

"Is that a problem?" Kat asked.

"They're all ghouls," Declan whispered to himself. He couldn't do this. What was keeping them from going feral? If the Brotherhood found him here, what would they say? What would the ghouls say if they found out he was Brotherhood? He wasn't safe there, he had to leave immediately. "We have to go," he told her.

"No we don't," Kat told him. "Besides, the road down below isn't safe to travel. The Forged like to attack traveling traders. It sounds like they finally got caught by the Minutemen."

"Then we take a different road."

"I do business here. I'm not leaving," she informed him.

He frowned. "Kat I can't stay here with all these ghouls."

"Then leave," she said simply as she sat on the ground and began going through her inventory.

Leaving meant being on his own again. He'd grown quite comfortable with Gus as his backup. It was also abundantly clear that Kat was nowhere near as impressed with him as he was with her. "Thank you for everything..." he said quietly.

Kat looked up at him through her bangs but she said nothing to stop him from leaving.

Going back outside the gate, Declan crossed the grassy expanse and stopped in the road to try and get a clearer view of the battle. All he could really see were eruptions of yellow and orange in the fog. The smoke from the fires and fighting hung low. Now he really couldn't breathe. He coughed and covered his mouth before going back the way they'd come from.

Reaching the empty checkpoint, he placed a hand on one of the vehicles to steady himself. The smoke from the battle was growing surprisingly thick given his distance from it and it did nothing to soothe his growing anxiety. He needed to rest but first he had to find some place safe to rest. He coughed again as he continued on tired legs.

It occurred to him that by going out alone, he was chancing running into the raiders again. He managed to slip away the first time, but he was fairly certain he wouldn't get away with it a second time. He leaned against a different vehicle and closed his eyes. What was he supposed to do? Maybe, if he just stayed there long enough, the Minutemen would eventually return and they could get him home. He spared a glance towards the blue glow of the Slog's neon lights. Knowing his luck, they'd drag him back to that settlement – it was the nearest settlement. He couldn't handle going back. He could barely handle where he was.

"Do you need help kid?" the scratchy voice of yet another ghoul startled him. His eyes snapped open to see a ghoul in road leathers and a fedora staring back at him. What was with this place and it's absurdly high ghoul population? Were there no human settlers? How had a ghoul, and a pack brahmin of all things, managed to get so close to him without him realizing they were there. He had no business out in the Commonwealth. He was an awful representative of the Brotherhood.

"I'm fine," he told the provisioner. The less time he spent in the ghoul's company, the better.

"Are you sure? You're injured and you look a little shaken up," the ghoul reached out for his arm but Declan wretched away and pulled out his pistol. The ghoul held up his hands and stepped back. "Clearly I was mistaken."

"Stay away from me!" Declan held him at gunpoint for a long moment before he lowered the weapon and sidestepped to get away from him. He spared a quick glance back towards The Slog before he cautiously walked around the ghoul and continued on his way. He was torn, this one didn't seem like an abomination. Sure he looked hideous and he smelled awful, but he seemed sincere. Still, he couldn't hardly stand to look at his face. The worst part was, Declan wanted to go with the ghoul provisioner because he really didn't want to be alone, he just couldn't bring himself to accept his help.

"There's a new settlement down the road on the right," the ghoul told him. "It's at a place called Breakheart Banks. You're going to see a lot of super mutant handy work. Just go on past that."

"I'll be alright," Declan said, unable to bring himself to let the ghoul know that he was scared and needed help.

"It's your funeral kid, there's a storm moving in."

Declan left the provisioner and his pack brahmin behind as the wind picked up. He wasn't afraid of a storm. Storms brought wind and the wind would help clear up the fog. He looked forward to being able to see long distances again. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Declan looked up at the darkening sky and pulled his cap down lower on his head.


	5. Mysterious Stranger

**Squire Lost**

 **Mysterious Stranger**

The one perk to a storm rolling in was that fog didn't tend to hang around once the wind picked up. Unfortunately storms also brought rain, lightning, and more often than not, radiation. If he was lucky, his radiation exposure would be minimal and the storm would blow over quickly. If he was unlucky—well, he didn't want to think about what kind of weather he knew the Commonwealth was capable of.

Declan shielded his face against the high wind. The ghoul provisioner had been right about the storm. Unfortunately, his instructions to the other Minuteman settlement weren't quite as reliable—that or Declan just didn't understand them. He'd passed the super mutant camp a while ago and had done his best to sneak past unnoticed. The farther he walked, the more he started questioning if he should've. He distinctly remembered being told to go past the super mutant mess. Did that mean he should've walked past the entire settlement, or just walked past the blood and bones and actually gone inside? For all Declan knew, the ghoul's eagerness to help was just an act and he was actually trying to get him killed.

Lightning erupted overhead, illuminating the road ahead of him. There was nothing. On the right was a drop off into a bay of some kind, on the left was the rocky face of a steep bluff, and ahead of him was just an empty, desolate road. Despite the fact that he was all alone, he felt like he was being watched. The feeling made him uneasy. Declan stopped in the middle of the street. Gazing out into the darkening expanse before him, he debated his options-he'd passed a bus not too far back that would offer adequate shelter, but he'd lose ground and he'd have to spend the night close to Super Mutants.

The thought of being sniffed out and mauled by one of their hounds in his sleep frightened him. The thought of being torn limb from limb or crushed into a bloody pulp scared him even more. He shuddered at the thought and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Thunder rumbled up above and was followed by a sharp bolt of lightning. He ducked instinctively, and felt the energy radiating off of it

The booming thunder was deafening, and a stinging pain shot through his left leg. Initially thinking the lighting had tagged him through a tree root, he dropped to his knees and clutched at the torn material of his pants. It took a few more moments than it should've for him to realize that he hadn't been hit by lightning. With the wind still whipping the trees, leaves, and arid soil around him, he peeled the tattered fabric back to examine the damage. His fingers felt a weird knot on his exposed skin, and he quickly jumped up when the lump fell into his hand and started squirming around. He threw it onto the ground and kicked the wriggling blob to the side of the road. He slid his hand down to the hole in his pants. His leg felt normal, stinging and bleeding, but without any additional weird lumps. Something hit him in the stomach, but didn't penetrate his coat's leather exterior. Then something else hit him a bit lower but was again deflected by the coat. Whatever it was, it wasn't lightning. He didn't see any laser fire and couldn't hear any gunshots. He could hear nothing but the wind howling through the trees and could see nothing but dark silhouettes in the rapidly diminishing light. Staggering backwards, he fled from his invisible assailant but was pursued. He was hit twice more in the leg before he finally identified his attacker.

Away from the bluffs that had been shielding it from the oncoming storm, a lone bloatfly struggled to fly towards him against the wind. Getting his gun out, he tried to fire the weapon but it hurt too much to hold the pistol and pull the trigger at the same time. He switched to his non-dominant hand as the rain began to fall. Holding the gun clumsily, he aimed and fired. His first three shots missed, so he decided to hold the gun with both hands. He took the time to steady the gun with his injured hand—no easy feat with his body shivering and trembling from a combination of the wind and rain, his injuries, and fear. He squeezed the trigger but heard his gun go off before he felt it kick. The bloatfly burst apart upon impact, its remnants disappearing in the darkness. His hands dropped to his sides. The bloatfly didn't seem to have any friends backing him up and for that Declan was thankful. Still, he wasn't sure what to make of his last shot. Raising the pistol up close to his face, he turned it to the side as he examined it. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw someone standing in the trees. He lowered the gun and squinted in the darkness. Lightning flashed again, confirming that he was alone. Dismissing it as a radiation-induced hallucination, he opted to take the route that offered him some reprieve from the wind. He started up the narrow road that passed beside the bluff. The road was steep and he struggled to go up it, but he couldn't stop—not until he had shelter.

The wind beat against him, forcing him to shield his face from the onslaught of stinging rain drops. His leg felt like it was on fire and running uphill only made it worse. On the side of the road sat another bus. It was more damaged than the first bus he'd encountered, but it would do. He hurried up the stairs and fell when something caught hold of his foot. He landed on something that rapidly collapsed under his weight, leaving him sprawled across the bus's gritty floor. He cried out in both pain and alarm, and yanked his foot back so hard that he sent the skeleton he'd tripped over flailing down the steps of the bus. Lowering his pistol, he cried, relieved that it hadn't been another ghoul. He trembled as he tried to calm himself and get some semblance of composure. The skeletons scattered around the Commonwealth bothered him. Many of them were people who had died alone and were then left alone. No one ever found them or disposed of their bodies. He didn't want to end up another nameless skeleton for people to kick aside and ignore.

He scooted back until he was beside the driver's seat, closed his eyes, and listened to the sound of the rain pounding against the roof of the bus. The rain had blown in through the broken windows, but for the most part the center of the bus was staying dry. Just as his heart rate was starting to slow down, the skeleton of the bus driver tumbled from the seat and fell down across his lap. His eyes snapped open and he gasped in surprise. He frantically shoved the skeleton onto the floor and then kicked at it until it lay in a crumpled heap of loose bones partially encased in a tattered blue uniform. It was difficult to see much of anything in the bus, but he could make out the shape of the object that he'd fallen on. Keeping an eye on the driver, he carefully reached out and took hold of the object. It was surprisingly light despite its size. His fingers slid across its rough fabric exterior until he found a place where the fabric was torn. He pulled it back and the entire top opened up. He'd fallen on top of an unlocked suitcase.

Intrigued, he propped the top up against the side of the bus and reached inside. There was clothing of some kind, a squishy plastic bag of liquid, what felt like another pistol, some loose ammunition, and a long tin can. He snatched the can up quickly. It was far too heavy to be potato crisps—it had to be purified water. It would appear that his luck was turning around. His fingers frantically searched the suitcase for something to open it with. Finding something metallic, he grabbed it. He slid his thumb over the top and it fell open. He didn't have a can opener but he did have a lighter. Striking his thumb down, he lit it and looked around.

The bus driver lay in a broken heap by the wall and a second skeleton lay further away. He looked down at the can of water in his lap. For the moment, pain wasn't the most dominant thought in his mind. Peering back into the damaged suitcase, he could see a pink and white checkered shirt, clean pants, some rad away, another 10mm pistol, 12 rounds for it, and a handwritten note that read simply, _Courtesy of the Minutemen._

Declan frowned. There had to be a way to get the can open. The rain began to let up as a bolt of lightning illuminated a dark green sky. For a moment, he could see that the back half of his bus was missing and that the only protection the old pre-war automobile was affording him was partial shelter from the wind and rain. He flipped the lighter closed and tucked it into one of his coat pockets. He had water, he just couldn't get to it. Maybe his luck wasn't changing for the better after all. Reaching out with his good hand, he caught some dripping rainwater in his palm and brought it to his lips. He closed his eyes and listened to the thunder. It sounded different but he couldn't quite explain how. There was a certain energy to it that he recognized as the ominous precursor to radiation storm. After everything he'd been through, he hoped the rad storm wasn't too severe.

A water droplet ran down his forehead and along his nose. He wiped it away with his right hand and then tucked the stiff and injured hand close to his body. His cap and coat were soaked but he didn't dare remove them. As much as he wanted to pull on the dry shirt, it simply wasn't worth the risk of not having the protection his coat provided him. He wondered how dry Kat and Gus were at The Slog. He didn't care how badly he hurt or how many skeletons he had camping out with him, he still felt safer on his bus than he did surrounded by those ghouls—mostly. Pressing his back against the driver's seat, he laid his pistol across his lap and retrieved the bullets from the suitcase. He carefully loaded his gun as he watched for threats through the large opening in the back of the bus.

His head felt fuzzy and numb and his stomach was twisted in a nauseated knot from pain, fear, and radiation exposure. He turned the can over with his good hand. There was a chance he could puncture it with his knife. He held the can weakly. In order to puncture the can, he'd have to have the strength to actually drive the knife through the lid. His eyes fluttered closed as the fuzzy feeling grew stronger. The storm raging outside certainly wasn't helping. Every bolt of lightning seemed to irritate his physical being. He might have been going a bit crazy but he was starting to believe it was actually making him feel even more ill. He slowly slid his thumb back and forth across the side of his can of purified water as he drifted off.

* * *

Over in Sanctuary, the people played baseball. They played under the glow of construction lights, on a makeshift field that sloped down to the wall along the Concord River. General Luke Miller had created the field as a way to distract himself after the Minutemen took down the Institute. Initially the settlers were skeptical, but they quickly took to the game and it became the most popular way to unwind after a long day of working on the settlement. Usually Luke played with them, but tonight he was preoccupied with a pesky wiring issue.

Wearing little more than a tattered t-shirt and jeans, he sat up on the roof of Jun and Marcy's house and reworked the line that went to the security light on their carport. Jun sat beside Luke, holding a lantern so that Luke could see what he was doing.

"Keep an eye on him, Jun!" Marcy called from the house. "One mistake could send this whole place up in flames. This old wood is kindling and we're the farthest house from the river."

They were hardly the farthest house, but Luke let it go, too preoccupied with his work.

"I think he knows what he's doing," Jun called back down. "He did a pretty good job with the rest of the place." Jun offered Luke an apologetic smile, a smile that Luke saw often from him. "You know Marcy means well," he offered. "Its just that this is our first place that's ever had this much electricity, and with the baby—she's paranoid."

Luke grinned as he worked on the wiring. He understood and was glad Jun appreciated what he'd done with Sanctuary. With structures already in place, clean water had been his first priority. It hadn't taken long for the hand pumps to get overwhelmed by the demand of new settlers, and their weak output wasn't worth the pain of installing them, so Luke had started building industrial sized purifiers out on the river—with Sturges' help of course. Before he knew it, he had a water surplus large enough to fund the repairs and reinforcements to all of the surviving houses, the construction of new houses, stores, a health clinic, a bar, and a bath house with functioning shower stalls. It was a far cry from how things had been prior to the Great War but compared to life almost everywhere else in the Commonwealth, it was paradise.

After the raiders started snooping around they installed street lights, security lights, and backup generators in the event the main generator ever went down. They'd built walls and defenses, workshops and furniture, and if Piper and Curie had their way, they'd be building a school in the very near future. He'd built and maintained equipment during his time with the military and he had spent the past year and a half applying everything he'd ever learned to his settlements and teaching skills to as many settlers as he could. Luke had never been one to brag, but he'd created quite the able-bodied work force and he was quite proud of what they'd accomplished.

"Still, keep an eye on him," Marcy told Jun. Luke grinned. She was almost as bad as his mother-in-law had been. Almost.

"I don't really know what I'm watching for," Jun confided in him. "I don't know how to do any of this stuff. I wouldn't know if you were messing something up or not."

"That's why I've got you up here," Luke told him. "You're going to learn. Next week I'm going to put a pair of lights at the north gate. I want there to be more coverage for our guys coming over the creek. You're going to help me do it."

"I don't know that I can."

"I have faith in you, Jun," Luke said as he tightened the last of the screws and connected the security light to a power source. The light jerked to life and began shining it's light along the street and the fronts of some of the other houses.

"There we go!" One of the settlers shouted from the ground down below.

Walking out to the edge of the carport's roof, Luke and Jun watched the ball game from above. Luke still wasn't sure how comfortable he was with the settlers playing a lot of night games, but he was fairly confident that the turrets they'd put on the concrete platforms both in and along the river, would provide a decent amount of protection from most threats. Someone got a solid hit down below, and he watched with great amusement as one of his plaid-clad settlers ran to first, taking the bat with them.

"He's supposed to drop that isn't he?" Jun asked. Luke smiled and nodded.

"Drop the bat!" Preston called out from the audience. "You're supposed to drop the bat!"

Luke sat on the edge of the carport, letting his legs dangle. Taking in a deep breath, he closed his eyes. He was so thankful for the peace that they were currently enjoying, it was nice to have a break from the almost constant fighting he'd experienced when he'd come out of the vault. Something happened below and he could hear a chorus of laughter. He didn't open his eyes, he didn't care. All that mattered was that his new family was safe, accounted for, and thriving—and in a place like the Commonwealth, that was an amazing thing. He opened his eyes and gazed out at the cloudy sky. In the distance, he could see flashes of lightning from an approaching storm. Silhouetted against the flashes of light he could also see a vertibird. It was hardly an unusual sight—the Brotherhood had stayed around even after the Minutemen had destroyed the Institute. They claimed they were gathering lost tech but truth be told, most of the stuff that they got they had received from him after the Minutemen made copies of it. Things that couldn't be copied, like equipment, were just stored away without the Brotherhood ever realizing that the Minutemen had possession of it.

He'd gotten word that a vertibird had gone down around Taffington and the Mystic River. He'd given the order to take West Everett Estates and eliminate the Super Mutant threat there, and while he'd been a bit uneasy with the order, Ronnie had assured him that their Minutemen were up to the task. Based off the reports he'd gotten, she was right. It was nice not having to lead every mission himself, even if it felt a bit odd to hand over the leadership position in the field. Someday he'd learn to stop doubting that woman.

He scooted off the edge and dropped down to a stack of storage crates below. Shoving his screwdriver into his handmade tool belt, he offered Marcy a small, cautious smile as he walked past her and crossed under the carport. To his surprise, she looked up from the newborn she was nursing and gave him a thin, ghost of a smile in return. His smile broadened but he didn't let her see it. He wouldn't want her to start thinking they might be friends or anything.

"Hold up," he said as he walked over to where Shaun was up to bat. "Here, stand like this," he adjusted Shaun's legs, "and hold your bat like—no, not like that," he laughed. "Raise this arm up some and keep a firm grip here," he adjusted the boy's stance. "And when you swing, don't let go of the bat this time okay?"

"Okay Dad," Shaun smiled.

Luke stepped far out of the way and watched as Shaun swung at a wildly thrown pitch. They were all so bad at the game, but they were having a blast playing it. The sound of the vertibird's engines grew louder as it circled Sanctuary. Luke looked up and watched as it landed on the old foundation he'd long ago designated as a helipad. Leaving the game, he made his way past the backyard gardens and over to the helipad at the end of the loop. As expected, Danse was already there. Preston followed him, but hung back and observed.

Luke watched as a soldier in power armor disembarked from the vertibird and stood at attention. He couldn't make out their rank due to the darkness and distance, but he assumed they were a Knight. They were followed by Elder Maxson. "This looks important," Luke said under his breath, this was the first time he'd ever seen the Elder off of the Prydwen.

They stood where they were and waited for Maxson to approach them. Danse went to attention but Luke did not.

Danse glanced over at him. "As a member of the Brotherhood—"

"He made it abundantly clear that he does not want me to be a member of the Brotherhood. He doesn't give me missions, he usually doesn't even acknowledge me," Luke reminded his sponsor quietly. "Besides, I'm pretty sure that technically, being in the Brotherhood while also being the General of the Minutemen is some kind of conflict of interest, and honestly, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to handle this situation."

Danse frowned. "For the most part both groups want the same thing."

"For the most part," Luke conceded. He knew, that unlike Maxson, Danse didn't want him to leave the Brotherhood of Steel. "Elder," Luke greeted Maxson.

"Knight Miller," Arthur spoke dryly.

"Around here, you should address me as General."

Maxson scowled but nodded. "General," he corrected himself in a low gruff voice.

So far the initial interaction had been a tense one. Still, Maxson was talking to him and that was huge progress compared to how things had been since he'd opted not to include the Brotherhood in his plans to infiltrate the Institute.

"So, what do you need? If I recall correctly, the last time we spoke, you told me that you would send for me when you needed me. The fact that you came in person instead of sending a messenger tells me that you need something very important."

"I assure you that the matter is of grave importance," Maxson answered. A bolt of lightning snaked its way across the sky.

"We'll talk in my house." Luke led the way down the road not waiting to see if Maxson approved of it or not. He walked briskly but it didn't take much for Danse and Maxson to catch up to him. The baseball game had come to an end with the vertibird's arrival and it was probably for the best because the storm was rapidly moving in. Settlers watched from the safety of their homes as the wind picked up.

When they arrived at the house, Luke pushed open the door and allowed Shaun and Dogmeat to go inside first. Despite the house's rough exterior, Luke had put a lot of work into the interior. Shaun hurried down the hall with Dogmeat following him excitedly, but Luke stayed in the main room and gestured to the furniture he'd rebuilt from scrap.

"Have a seat," he told Maxson. Not bothering to wait for a reply, he went to the iron cook stove in the kitchen and checked on the radstag stew he'd left in a covered pot. On the counter, a small radio played Skeeter Davis. He switched it off and watched the young Elder as he looked around the house. Danse and Preston followed them inside, but remained quietly next to the front door.

"I see you found your son," Maxson stated. "He looks a lot like you."

Luke nodded. He'd never be able to tell Maxson the truth—there were days he still struggled with it himself. The only member of the Brotherhood who knew the truth about Shaun was Danse, and that was only because Luke was trying to use the Paladin's attachment to the boy to eventually break the news about Danse to Danse himself. Truth be told, the Minutemen discovering the similarities between Danse and one of the rogue Institute Synths had been one of the main reasons Luke didn't hand over his information from the Institute in the first place. Their suspicions had been confirmed with the help of the enhanced VATS program on his pipboy, and it was in that moment that Luke opted to keep Maxson and his ship full of scientists, scholars, and soldiers as far away from his new best friend as possible. It had angered Maxson and frustrated Danse, but so far, it had kept Danse alive.

Shaun came back into the room and smiled shyly when everyone in the room stopped to look at him. Luke fixed him a bowl of stew and placed it on the island in the kitchen. "Do you want any?" he asked Maxson. He wasn't surprised when the Elder declined his offer. "Help yourself guys," he told the others as he fixed his own bowl. Carrying the bowl over to the couch, he sat down. "Hey Shaun, would you mind getting drinks?"

"No problem, Dad," Shaun smiled as he got up and went to the pantry.

"So tell me, what was so important that you came to talk to me in person?" Luke asked Maxson.

"We've lost a Squire," Maxson told him.

Luke hesitated, his spoon halfway to his mouth.

"What exactly do you mean by _lost_?" Danse asked quickly.

"Which one?" Luke inquired.

"Squire Declan. He's missing. He was on a training mission when his vertibird went down."

"When—" Luke started.

"Where did it go down, Arthur?" Danse asked.

"Over the river between Taffington Boathouse and West Everett Estates."

Luke watched as Maxson spoke to Danse. Despite Danse's involvement in helping the Minutemen takedown the Institute, Maxson didn't seem to be holding it against him. It was frustrating. Luke had enjoyed being an active member of the Brotherhood, and he didn't like being an outsider. "So it was that vertibird that went down in the Mystic," Luke spoke up.

"Is that why you authorized that attack?" Danse asked.

Luke nodded. "So long as the Brotherhood is fighting to make the Commonwealth a safer place, they are fighting on the side of the Minutemen. And anyone attacking a Brotherhood outpost or patrol will be dealt with the same way I deal with those foolish enough to attack a Minutemen settlement, checkpoint, or patrol." He stared Maxson in the eye. "I still consider us brothers, even if you do not. I had my reasons for taking on the Institute without you. If you were being honest about really caring for the people of the Commonwealth then you wouldn't let that come between us." He smiled when Shaun brought him some water in a chipped coffee mug. A loud crack of thunder startled Shaun, making him jump. Luke reached out and took hold of the boy's arm. "We'll head out at dawn. It is getting late and it is storming. I'm exhausted. I'm no good to Declan if I'm too tired to travel, let alone fight to protect him. You can bunk here for the night. There's room for your Knight and your Lancer in the bunkhouse by the landing pad. In the meantime, I'll have Preston contact Castle and put out an alert. I have Minutemen and Settlers all over that area. If anyone finds him before morning, they'll let us know."

"I appreciate your assistance," Maxson told him.

"Next time, don't wait so long to ask for help," Luke stated. The overhead lights dimmed but they didn't go out.

Preston put his bowl down and walked over to the front door. He pulled it open just enough to watch the rain pouring down and then looked back over at Luke.

"Yeah, yeah, you and rain. Run fast and maybe you won't get wet," he teased.

Preston shook his head as he held his hat securely to his head and slipped out the front door.

Luke went back to eating his food. "I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit surprised you're hanging around. I never thought I'd end up going on a mission with you. Are you sure you don't want any food? It's good. If you're going to be here all night, you're going to need to eat something" he told Maxson.

Maxson declined with a subtle shake of his head. The room was plunged into an awkward silence, so Luke just focused on his food and tried to look as if he were oblivious to The Elder's discomfort with being there. Shaun took off down the hall and returned a few moments later holding a laser rifle.

"Where did you get that?" Luke asked.

"I made it earlier. It is for you," Shaun smiled.

Luke sat his mug down and took the rifle. He turned it over in his hands, inspecting the craftsmanship. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Maxson lean in a bit to get a look at the weapon as well.

"Do you like it?" Shaun asked. "Maybe, if you don't need it, you could sell it to someone else."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Luke told him.

Shaun smiled broadly. "Good. It's to keep you safe when you have to leave me. I don't like it when you leave me. But people need you. Just, just make sure you don't forget about me."

Luke stood up and pulled him into a hug. Sometimes Shaun's sentences sounded like a computer regurgitating its information processing out loud. "I would never forget about you. Not even the Institute could keep me from coming back to you. Never forget that." Was his attachment to the synth child healthy? That was debateable. Did he care? Not at the moment.

Shaun hugged him tightly and then took a step back. "I'm going to go read that book Nat gave me."

Luke nodded. "Go ahead, but take that stew with you. You need to eat." He waited until Shaun was in his room before looking down at the rifle in his hand. He turned it over, examining it again.

"What were they teaching children in the Institute?" Maxson asked.

Luke shook his head as he ran his fingers along the barrel. Had Shaun been an ordinary child he would've been shocked and impressed that he could build laser rifles at all—let alone laser rifles that appeared to be this sturdy and precise. But Shaun wasn't an ordinary child and had obviously had some questionable weapons manufacturing skills programmed into him. It was a little concerning. His thoughts about Shaun led him to thoughts about the settlement children old enough to use guns, which in turn reminded him that the Squires were sent out unarmed—also concerning, but for entirely different reasons. "Why aren't the Squires armed when you send them out into the field?"

"Because that is the regulation," Maxson said flatly as he stood.

"But why?" Luke pressed. "If you teach children how to properly handle firearms, you can trust them—"

"No you can't."

"I'm not saying give them a gun to have on them at all times, I'm not even saying you have to give them a powerful gun, but I had a BB gun when I was eight. My Dad was taking me target shooting and hunting when I was ten."

"This is not up for debate, General."

Luke stood up and placed the rifle on the island counter in the middle of the room. He was pleased that Maxson used his appropriate title even if the tone suggested he was irritated with him—again. "What, did the Brotherhood suffer some terrible tragedy because they allowed one of their Squires the ability to defend themselves once upon a time?" Luke pressed. He could tell Maxson was very irritated with him, but there was something else in his expression, was it embarrassment? "Did you accidentally shoot somebody as a Squire?" he teased. Danse shot him an exasperated look but he ignored it.

"Twice," Maxson admitted with some difficulty.

Luke had been about to say something else, but the Elder's unexpected confession stopped him short. There was a Brotherhood regulation barring Squire's from carrying firearms because the great and magnificent Elder Maxson accidentally shot two members of the Brotherhood as a child?

Maxson walked around the island and studied some pre-war photographs Luke had framed and hung on the wall. Despite the intensity of his gaze, he didn't really seem to be processing what he was looking at.

"They're mine from before the bombs fell. I had them buried in a time capsule. My wife's younger sister was still in school. It was a class project kind of thing," Luke told him. "That's uh...That's her. That's my Nora," he told him. "Us with the house on the day we bought it." He cautiously approached the much younger leader. He'd seen this type of tense body language before in other soldiers during war and in his settlers after particularly harrowing days. Not wanting to provoke anything, he kept talking casually. "That's me and the cat. It wasn't even white but that didn't stop Nora from naming it Sugar. She said I could never turn sugar down. ...She was right, the cat got to stay."

"I shot Sentinel Lyons while out on a training mission. It was just a flesh wound the first time but, the second time… She was Elder and she insisted on going out into the wasteland. We were on a patrol. It was an accidental discharge. I was bored and playing with my weapon..."

Danse looked up quickly, realization flashing across his face. "But the reports said Elder Lyons died in battle."

"Elder Lyons died due to an incompetent Squire's negligence," Maxson growled.

"But the reports—" Danse insisted.

"I thought the Brotherhood didn't keep secrets," Luke interrupted.

"The reports were falsified to protect the parties involved."

"Namely you," Luke interrupted again.

"Namely me," Maxson acknowledged him. "I plunged the Brotherhood into years of turmoil and weak leadership because I was a Squire not ready for the responsibility of having a firearm."

Silence filled the room as Luke looked over at Danse. He certainly hadn't expected that kind of admission. Danse appeared to be speechless and grappling with what to say. The howling of the storm grew louder as Preston opened the door and slipped back in. His coat was drenched and water ran off the brim of his had. Making sure the door was secure, he removed his hat and hung it on the hat rack.

"An announcement will play hourly about the lost Squire until we recover him," Preston told them as he walked back to the island and picked his bowl of stew back up. He pulled the stool around so he could eat and face them, and then sat down. He looked around the quiet room. "What did I miss?"


	6. Malden

Squire Lost

Malden

Teagan stood on the rubble of an old Malden building and watched as more than a dozen Brotherhood soldiers laid siege to the hospital that the super mutants were holed up in. What mutants were dumb enough to come out and fight had to contend with the gunner in the vertibird overhead. He glanced up at the vertibird and watched as it struggled to hold a tight flight pattern against the wind. Most of the vertibirds were docked because of the storm, but Lancer-Initiate Dion had insisted she be allowed to fly. She reminded him of Rico. The two of them had been very close and very competitive. And like Rico, he considered her a friend. For the most part she seemed to be living up to her reputation as one of their best pilots. He hoped she could handle the storm.

He squinted against the rain that streaked down his face and brought a gloved hand up to wipe it away. It was a futile action against the wind and rain, but it was habit. Stepping closer to the building, he shielded himself from the brunt of the storm and took a headcount to make sure everyone on his team was still accounted for. Things had gotten a bit hairy outside of MedTek—one of his Aspirants had sustained a minor head injury and substantial lacerations to their hand and face that a medic was able to dress. They cleared the parking garage just to be certain Declan hadn't gone inside, but they left the main facility alone. Teagan couldn't imagine his nephew going inside the place, there were just too many damned ferals outside.

With the mutants outside dealt with, the vertibird hovered just long enough for one last team to drop down and rush inside the hospital. Teagan watched as Dion piloted her craft to the southeast. He squinted against the darkness and hoped she had a safe journey back to base. The rain had been torrential for hours but looked to be finally letting up. He was thankful—he and his team were soaked to the bone.

He stepped out away from the building and the mountain of debris he stood on shifted under his boots. He hadn't meant to get sidetracked in Malden for so long, but Declan was small enough that he could have hidden himself away anywhere, and if he were injured, there was no guarantee he'd be able to get back out.

Teagan led the way through the empty streets in the dark. It was unsettling for such a large, developed area to be so devoid of inhabitants. Most of the buildings were boarded up tight, and the one house they found open was filled with dead ghouls and a dark narrow passage that lead to a putrid smelling cavern with an underground river. Aside from the ghouls they'd dispatched earlier and the super mutants his comrades had intentionally sought out, there appeared to be nothing but bugs in the area. With the storm passed, the only sounds of life were their own boots on the ground and the clanking of the soldiers wearing power armor behind him. He was thankful at least that this round of rain and thunder was not followed by an intensely electrical radiation storm like the storm they'd encountered earlier in the evening.

Seeing movement up ahead, Teagan quickened his pace and kept his gun drawn. Based on his garb Teagan could tell that the other person was a raider. The raider tried to outrun them but didn't get far before Teagan was able to catch up to him and strike him with the butt of his laser rifle. The raider tumbled to the ground and laid on his back, making no move to get up and instead holding his hands up in a defensive gesture when Teagan aimed the laser rifle at his face.

"Who are you?" Teagan asked. "Identify yourself."

"Dwayne!" he cried out. "My name's Dwayne!"

"Have you got a last name Dwayne?"

"No sir! I swear!"

"Do you have any friends around here? Any comrades that are going to jump out and try to ambush us?"

"No sir."

"And you expect me to believe that? It's not that often anyone comes across a lone raider."

"I had a gang but they were torn apart by ghouls this morning."

"How convenient," Teagan frowned, still not convinced.

"I'm telling the truth! We woke up to some kid running through our camp. He had a pack of ferals after him. We didn't stand a chance."

Teagan lowered his weapon as his team grew closer. "Tell me about the kid."

"I don't know, he was just some little shit in a fancy coat! A fancy leather coat. It looked new—not like the prewar hand-me-downs everybody else wears. I ain't ever seen anything like it. H-He had nice boots too. His hair, well his hair was black, a little curly but short. It was shaved on the sides. The little shit led a pack of fucking ferals into our camp while we were sleeping."

"Which way did he go?" he asked evenly, trying not to reveal any kind of emotion.

"I don't know."

Teagan handed his rifle to the Aspirant on his right, and then hauled Dwayne up by his throat and slammed him against the side of a busted up vehicle. "Try to remember," he said through clenched teeth.

"I don't! I swear! I don't! Ghouls were everywhere and then this stranger showed up and he disappeared!" The frantic raider pawed at Teagan's hand, but he was far too weak to break free.

Had someone grabbed Declan? They'd have to be strong to just wrestle him away that quickly. "What stranger?" Teagan asked. "Another raider? A Minuteman?"

"I don't know, just some mysterious stranger! He was just this jerk in a hat and a long coat. He put down the ghoul that was chasing the kid, but when I called to him for help, the bastard just disappeared."

"And the kid disappeared with him?"

"I don't know!" the raider shouted, his voice cracked and strained.

"Where's this camp at?"

"Southeast of here. It's off the road. You can't miss it, there are bodies lying everywhere."

One of the Knights came up behind Teagan and for the first time, he was able to see the raider under the light of their headlamp. His face was bloodied and bruised, covered in scratches and teeth marks. He was missing some of the flesh and meat on one of his cheeks, two of his fingers and part of his right ear. The tattered harness he wore under his gear was soaked in blood. Teagan grimaced—he was a gruesome sight. "Take us to this campsite."

"No way," he whimpered.

"Come on now Dwayne, don't make me have to get testy," Teagan warned him.

"No really, please," the raider pleaded, tears streaming down his face. "Don't make me go back. If you're looking for the kid, he's not there. I swear!"

Teagan let go of him. Dwayne seemed confused. "I believe you."

The raider nodded, taking a few uncertain steps backward. "So, is he like, your kid or something?"

"Something like that," Teagan replied as he took his rifle back.

"Well then I guess you should hope he didn't come this way."

"And why is that?"

"Because the only thing out this way are swarms of bugs and that damn deathclaw."

"What deathclaw?"

"The one at the bottom of the sinkhole," he pointed toward a destroyed building. "If your kid fell down there and the stingwings didn't get him, the deathclaw definitely did."

Teagan nodded. "Thank you for the information."

"Um, you're welcome?" Dwayne the raider stood still. He appeared unsure of what to do with a band of Brotherhood soldiers that weren't shooting at him.

"Have a seat," Teagan told him.

"What?" Dwayne asked.

"Sit down or I shoot you," Teagan lifted his rifle.

"I'm sitting!" the raider cried out as he dropped to the ground.

Teagan stood still, surveying the area around them. It was a bit difficult to see beyond the ruins of the buildings.

"Initiate Paris, hold him here while we take care of that deathclaw. Once we're done, he's going to take us to that camp of his."

"I won't go back there," Dwayne said softly but defiantly.

Teagan smiled down at him. "Believe me, you will." He turned back to the Initiate. "If he keeps making noise, shoot him somewhere unimportant. If he tries to fight or run, take out a kneecap. We are more than capable of dragging him along with us if need be, but we will have his cooperation."

"Yes sir," the young Initiate said as she turned and trained her weapon on the raider.

Teagan led the way inside one of the buildings on the side of the road. "I want to clear these buildings and then find that deathclaw before we leave." Sifting through what was left of the building was no easy feat in the darkness. "Paladin Kris, shine your headlamp over here." He stepped aside and allowed the Paladin to move in front of him. "Check upstairs, I'll be right behind you. Knight Holmes, take Aspirant Grant and Initiate Jones and clear the building next to us. Knight Delancey, take Aspirant Ida and check the building beyond that. Check in on Initiate Paris and our new friend as well."

Their affirmatives blended together as Teagan started up the rickety stairs. Thanks to the Paladin's headlamp he could see that the floor was almost entirely barren. There were no signs that anyone had been there recently, let alone Declan. He frowned. He was cold, he was wet, he was running on only a few hours of sleep that he'd gotten two nights ago—he was running out of steam. The desire to find Declan was there but his physical ability to continue searching was starting to dwindle. His team was cold and exhausted and had earned the chance to bed down for the night. Still, it felt as if they were so close. They lost Declan's trail on the road south of Malden, which coincided with the raider's account. He was seen alive with a man who was both willing to protect him and seemed to have disdain for raiders. It put his mind at ease a little to think that wherever he was, Declan might be safe. He put his rifle away and pulled the missile launcher off of his shoulder.

"If we follow our new friend back to his camp we should be there around dawn. We'll take a rest at their camp and then try to pick up Declan's trail. If our friend Dwayne is telling the truth, he's in good company. We'll start checking the settlements and checkpoints that we come across to see if any of the Minutemen know this stranger in the trenchcoat."

"You know, he described that stranger very similar to how everyone else describes their chance meetings with Knight Miller," Paladin Kris told him.

Teagan made a face as he dismissed the assertion. "Only Miller doesn't wear trenchcoats—believes the loose material is a hazard. And he never travels alone—ever."

The Paladin nodded in resignation. "Fair enough."

They went back downstairs and met up with the rest of the team outside.

"The buildings were all empty," Knight Holmes reported.

Teagan nodded—not at all surprised. "I want to clear the sinkhole in case he tried to come back around and use these buildings as cover. Anyone up to being deathclaw bait?"

"I'll do it," Kris spoke up. "But please don't blow me up, sir."

Teagan smiled. "Don't worry Paladin, I have yet to hit a fellow brother or sister in the field and I'm not about to start now." He dug into his duffel bag and handed the Paladin a pair of grenades. "Try to keep your headlamp on it so I'll have something clear to shoot at. Ad Victoriam."

* * *

Declan woke to the sound of not-so-distant explosions going off. His mouth was so dry he could barely swallow. He adjusted himself against the back of the seat. The metal floor had made for an extremely uncomfortable bed and the pain in his left leg was awful. He rolled onto his side and his gun clattered to the floor next to his unopened can of water. The pain was so intense that he didn't move again out of fear of making it worse. He didn't think the pain had been anywhere near this bad before he'd passed out, but he also couldn't really remember anything but the pain.

Through the broken windows he could make out the silhouette of a large stingwing on the outside of the bus. He remained silent and still as he watched it—all too aware of the danger it posed to him. Even if he were completely healthy and at full strength, a stingwing swarm was almost guaranteed to be able to overwhelm and kill him. In his present state, he hoped that they didn't notice him or just thought that he was already dead.

Another series of explosions went off and he could feel their vibrations on the bus. The stingwing and the rest of its swarm took to the air and began flying around in an irritated frenzy. It was a frightening thing to witness so many shadows whipping around him in a haphazard and sporadic fashion. He closed his eyes tightly and just tried to remain as absolutely still as possible. For a few moments, all he could hear was the rapid flutter of their wings before they took off into the darkness. Alone again, he laid on the floor, his body too stiff and in pain to move. What was the point? Where would he go? His best bet was to just lie there and wait for a patrol to come through. If he was lucky, one of them might see him lying among the skeletons. If he wasn't lucky, well he just assumed the stingwings would return and he'd eventually become one of the skeletons.

He brought his good hand up to wipe his eyes, but there were barely any tears even though he'd started crying. Moving his hand away, he cautiously checked his leg. He already hurt so bad that he couldn't imagine it could be get any worse. His fingers brushed the skin on his thigh through a tear in his pants. Based off of the amount of loose fabric he found, he couldn't imagine that there was much holding the pant leg together. His fingers came across what he knew to be dried blood, but as they slid around the back of his thigh, he found another terrifying bulge under his skin. When his fingers touched it, it squirmed and sent a searing pain through his system like nothing he'd ever experienced before. His breath became extremely labored and he balled his hands into tight fists before passing out.

He came to before dawn. He couldn't hear the fighting anymore, but he could hear distant voices—lots of voices. Desperate for a distraction from whatever was inside of his leg, he focused on those voices and blocked everything else out. It sounded like they were singing and laughing—and they sounded close. He had to get to them. Closing his eyes, he grimaced as he clawed at the floor and pulled himself over onto his stomach. Slowly pushing himself up on shaky arms, he fought the dizzying feeling in his head.

Even though his leg hurt immensely, he managed to get up to his hands and knees and stuffed what items he could grab into his coat. The pain in his leg shrouded every other injury and ailment he had as he crawled across the floor of the bus and stopped just at the top of the stairs. He spared an anxious glance outside. Not seeing any stingwings in the darkness, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He mustered up the strength to force both of his legs to move and found his feet for just long enough to tumble out of the bus. With his guns tucked away in his coat, he dragged his stiff and injured leg as he crawled up the road in the darkness.

The concrete was hard on his knees and rough under his palms. He focused on its texture to try and distract himself from everything else. Each hand and knee placement was a reminder that the Commonwealth hadn't defeated him yet and that his mission wasn't over. A rusted truck blocked his path. He paused to rest up against it before opting to move through the brush on the side of the road. He didn't know where the stingwings had flown off to, but traveling out in the open road would have made him an easy target should they return. The ground was soft thanks to the rain that had fallen earlier. It was easier on his hands and knees regardless of how scratchy the vegetation was.

Declan paused when he crawled out onto the wooden deck of an old trailer. There was no more mud, just the splintered texture of old brittle wood under his fingertips. He was a little confused but his head too fuzzy to really question it too much. All he knew was that he was crawling at a steeper angle and was out in the open again. When he reached the edge he looked around. His left was still obscured by a rock wall and his right was open road. He laid down and rested his cheek on the rough metal edge of the trailer. If he was going to get back into cover to get to those voices he was going to have to drop a few feet to the ground and that was probably going to hurt a lot.

Scooting his body around, he dug his fingers in between two planks of wood as he slowly lowered his legs down. His good leg made contact first and he carefully let go and lowered himself to the ground. Aside from a bit of nausea and dizziness, he was holding up surprisingly well. He braced himself against the rock beside him and slowly rose to a standing position, careful not to move his injured leg anymore than absolutely necessary. Both his nausea and dizziness intensified, but he didn't let that deter him from hobbling along the edge of the road using the bluff as both a crutch and a guide.

He moved as quickly as he could despite the pain and his body's protests. His head was so cloudy, his mouth was so dry, and his body was so overcome with exhaustion that every movement took a concentrated effort to power through. It didn't help that the ground was incredibly uneven and when his feet slipped, it sent jolts of pain through his leg. He fell to his knees in a particularly uneven area and the pain that radiated up his leg nearly took his breath away.

The rock wall still loomed over him, but the end of it was in sight. He stayed close to the ground, opting to crawl to avoid passing out. Eventually the large rocks beneath him gave way to mud and vegetation again and he found himself moving through a narrow space between some prewar debris and the far end of the rock wall. He braced himself against the sidewall of a large tire and then fell into the center of it when his arm gave out. The side of his head collided with the sidewall, momentarily stunning him as his upper body slowly slid inside the opening of the tire. His hand up to his shoulder became submerged in the pooled rainwater inside, and his face nearly went under as well. He splashed and struggled to push himself out with his good hand—a much more difficult feat thanks to his dehydration and exhaustion.

The bandana that wrapped his injured hand was soaked—it had long since ceased to keep his wound clean and was now only good to help keep the wound somewhat closed. He grimaced as he adjusted the bandana in the dark and it took him a moment before he realized he'd just fallen into a drinkable water source. Getting down onto his forearms, he reached down and scooped some of the water up in his good palm. It smelled of dirt, rubber, and maybe some mixture of oils, but it was wet and it was cool and he was so desperately thirsty.

He choked a bit on his first few handfuls of water as if his tongue and throat had forgotten how to properly function when he was trying to swallow. The water didn't taste nearly as bad as he expected it to. It smelled, but for whatever reason it didn't really taste that bad. He allowed himself to rest, propped up against the tire, as he sipped on the water in his hand and listened to the voices in the distance. He knew he had to get moving if he was going to find the source of the voices. If they were just some band of roaming settlers who packed up and left without him, he didn't know what he would do. With a renewed bit of strength and determination, he pushed himself up off of the tire and stood on shaky legs. The pain in his leg was still there, but had plateaued at a very persistent and intense ache. It was awful but he knew it could, and possibly would be, worse the longer he took to get treatment, so he pushed himself on.

The terrain ahead was very steep. He came upon an outcropping too tall for him to climb over and he had to crawl up the steep hill that ran beside it. The ground beneath him was a mixture of mud and rock and slipping in the mud meant falling on a rock. Getting up the hill was a laborious task that required him to take a few breaks to catch his breath and keep the dizziness from overwhelming him. He collapsed when he came to the top and just laid sprawled on his stomach as he fought to stay conscious.

Through the grass he could see the warm glow of a fire. He raised up onto his elbows but he couldn't see anyone thanks to a wall that stood between him and where he needed to be. It was still dark out and Declan had no idea what time it was or how long he'd been trying to follow the voices. The only thing he knew was that behind that wall was the source of those voices, and he didn't care if they were human or ghoul, he had to get to them if he didn't want to die.

Crawling downhill was much easier than crawling up. He ended up next to a makeshift wall. There were holes in the rusty metal panels and gaps between the planks of wood. Through them, he could see the warm glow of lanterns, a security light of some kind, and a campfire outside of a glass house. He wanted to be in that glass house so badly. He opened his mouth to try and call out but his voice was weak and barely came out.

He closed his eyes and let his head lay against the ground. His body was so exhausted. A simple wall stood between him and where he needed to be and he didn't have the strength to walk along it and find the way in. The voices were so close. He could hear them as they talked about how terribly they'd slept and he wanted to join in their conversation so much His brief period with Kat and Gus felt like so long ago and he didn't want to be alone anymore. He regretted leaving them and he regretted leaving The Slog. Even if he'd spent his entire time there curled up in a corner crying like a coward, it would've been preferable to everything he'd gone through since.

Through the gaps and holes he could see flickers of silhouettes as they moved between the multiple light sources within the walls. The place looked too nice to be a raider nest—it was too bright on the inside and looked too clean on the outside. He had to find a way in. Mustering what little strength he had left, he pushed himself up onto his knees. His vision momentarily faded black but he didn't lose consciousness. Fighting the urge to throw up, he tried to stand but ended up in a hunched position. Reaching out he touched the wall with his hand and then braced himself against it as he slowly made his way downhill.

His legs wobbled and a few times he almost tumbled down. Overcome with dizziness, he fell to his hands and knees. He braced his hand against the wall as he threw up what water he'd consumed earlier. He felt awful. Raising up a hand to knock on the wall in a desperate attempt to get attention, he found he lacked the strength to make enough noise against the wood to overcome the sound of the turrets whirling around up above his head. His body made a muffled thud as he collapsed against the wall and then rolled onto his back.


	7. The Mysterious Stranger Returns

Squire Lost

The Mysterious Stranger Returns

When the sun went down in the Commonwealth, everything became pitch black extremely fast. It was one of the first things Luke learned about the Post War world aside from the fact that the bugs had become massive and unbelievably aggressive. The pure unadulterated darkness was one of the main reasons he didn't leave his settlements at night unless he absolutely had to. Due to his impaired vision, he did good identifying and eliminating quick moving threats in the daylight. At night he was practically blind.

A candle burned on a table a few feet away. It doused his corner of the living room in a warm, dim glow. Codsworth must have left it for him—meaning he'd given the the Mister Handy reason to worry again. He had no doubt that he'd been tossing and turning in his sleep—his blanket was lying on the floor and his pillow was bunched up in an uncomfortable lump. Being the good host that he was, he'd put Maxson up in his room and had slept on the couch. He could blame the couch for his lack of sleep, but he didn't really sleep that much better in a bed either. There were just some things that a man couldn't unsee and other things he seemed destined to relive every time he closed his eyes.

The frame of the couch creaked as Luke rolled over and futilely attempted to adjust the pillow he was sleeping on. Despite what the locals called it, he hardly considered it 'comfy'. Pulling it out from under his head, he balled it up in frustration before dropping it and letting it fall across his face. He let his arms fall limply to his sides and he groaned into the dingy white fabric. The knuckles of his right hand hit the coarse, cool floor and he grimaced as a dull ache spread up towards his wrist. His joints, especially those in his extremities, had never quite been the same since he'd contracted Molerat Disease. They ached when he tried to move them first thing in the morning, they ached when he bumped into things, they ached when the weather changed, and most of all they ached when he was in close proximity to molerats—as if he were having an odd reaction to them. Despite his discomfort, he left his arm hanging there. He wasn't comfortable but he didn't expect he'd get any more sleep so it hardly mattered—he hadn't had a full night's sleep in over 200 years.

There was a time before the Great War where he'd been evaluated and kept medicated due to the flashbacks that plagued his waking world and the nightmares that haunted his sleep. Even though Nora knew his distress, he tried to downplay it as much as possible. Those deemed too psychologically damaged in society were often used as test subjects for the government's scientists. Not that Nora would have ever handed him over, but if word of his debilitating anxiety problems had gotten out, he might have become a target—it wasn't unusual for problem citizens to just disappear without a trace. Truth be told, the entire time he was helping clear Parson's State and the interior of Med Tek, he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that had he not kept so quiet about his personal issues, he could've very easily become one of the deceased or deranged test subjects that he'd encountered while on his quests.

He closed his eyes tightly. Some of the settlers had such romanticized views of how things were before the war but he knew better. As dangerous as this life was, he knew that his old life wasn't really any safer. When anyone pressed the subject, he compared his fear of the old government to their fear of the Institute—it was a comparison that really seemed to resonate.

Through the patched walls and reinforced ceiling, he could hear one of the turrets on the roof. Sanctuary was a far cry from its once idyllic past, but it had become quite coveted by the those that meant the Minutemen harm. Even though the entire neighborhood was encompassed by a perimeter wall, a river, and an occasionally wet creek bed, it was better to be safe than sorry. Turrets reinforced the front and back gates, adorned the perimeter wall, and sat on almost every rooftop in the bustling settlement. The only Minutemen settlements with more security were Starlight and Castle.

He could hear footsteps down the hall. Judging by the gait, he assumed Maxson was up and pacing again. The Elder paced a lot. He had far too many troubles for someone who was barely 21—not that Luke was that much older than him.

"You talk in your sleep." Maxson's voice was uncharacteristically quiet, but that still didn't keep it from startling Luke in the darkness. He jolted up to a sitting position and clutched the pillow tightly in his hand.

"You pace a lot," Luke countered. He took slow breaths trying to calm his racing heart. He got a grunt of a response out of Maxson for stating the obvious. Even with the candle burning, he could barely make out Maxson's massive silhouette across the living room. "What do I say?" he asked.

"It was incoherent," Maxson stated. "You spoke of some edge and something under a hill. The rest was unintelligible."

Luke closed his eyes and held the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. "Edge and Underhill were soldiers," he whispered. "We were deployed together in Alaska. They didn't make it home."

Maxson pulled a stool out away from the island and sat on it. "A soldier's life often requires sacrifice," he offered. "It is a difficult life, not everyone is suited for it."

"Most of us didn't have a choice," Luke told him. "If you could pass a basic physical and fire a gun the Army would take you. So many were sacrificed, and for what? The world went nuclear anyway."

Outside there was commotion. Luke wasn't too concerned because the turrets weren't firing. He could hear Codsworth's propulsion system and various arm motors as he moved around, but for whatever reason he wasn't coming inside. Something was going on and it was a welcome distraction from the conversation he'd gotten himself into. Luke held up a hand to halt the conversation and listened closely.

"I beg your pardon sir, but I live here." Codsworth's tone suggested that whatever had insulted him had offended him all the way down to his nuclear power unit.

Tossing his pillow into the armchair he stood up. He moved slowly to allow his aching joints to adjust to the shift in body weight before he walked over to the front door. It was still quite dark out but he could make out a knight in power armor thanks to the streetlight at the end of the driveway. From the look of it, he seemed to be denying Codsworth entry to the house—protecting Maxson no doubt. Grinning at the thought of how irritated Codsworth probably was, Luke pulled open the door and leaned against the door frame.

"What did you do this time?" he teased the robot.

"Mister Luke, I didn't do anything I assure you. This man won't permit me to pass."

Luke grinned. "He's fine. He's with me," he told the Knight. Luke held the door for Codsworth and stared at the Knight—daring him to protest.

"I didn't expect to find the both of you up so early," Codsworth said as he picked up the blanket and draped it over the back of the couch. "I expected Mister Luke to rise early but that's hardly unusual. Do you require another pillow or blanket Mister Maxson? It gets a bit drafty this time of the year."

Maxson shook his head to dismiss him.

"Perhaps I could whip you up some breakfast. We have plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, or perhaps you'd prefer some preservative-rich food? Fancy Lads snack cakes and the like." Luke closed the door and grinned. It was amusing to listen to Codsworth fuss over someone other than him—the fact that he was fussing over Maxson made it even funnier. "...scrambled eggs perhaps? We have enough mirelurk eggs to feed a small army—and I should know because I helped feed the troops after they successfully defended Castle against the Institute." Codsworth chuckled. "What do you say?"

"Just whatever you have that'll be quick," Luke told Codsworth. "I want to try to get an early start on the search."

"Fancy Lads it is then," Codsworth said as he pulled a box down from the cabinet and held it out for Maxson. When the young Elder didn't immediately take it, he continued to hold it out for him. "Be careful around Mister Luke—he doesn't like to share his sweets."

Luke grinned as Maxson took the box. "Alright, you."

Appeased that Maxson wasn't going to go hungry, Codsworth retrieved another box for Luke and handed it to him. "And do get your glasses on, you won't find anyone walking around the Commonwealth blind as a bat."

"I found you," Luke mumbled playfully under his breath.

"Actually sir, if I remember correctly you walked past me while I was trimming the hedges. Had I not called out to you, why, I don't know how far you might've wandered," the Mister Handy said as he retrieved Luke's glasses and brought them to him.

Luke sighed as he slid the glasses on. He'd been trying to downplay his vision issues—especially in front of Maxson—but clearly Codsworth was unaware. "Happy?"

"Elated, sir," the Mister Handy replied.

"Sarcasm? Where did you pick that up?" Luke asked.

"From you, sir," Codsworth said as he brought Luke his boots.

"Of course," Luke said as he sat on the edge of the couch and began pulling his boots on. "Hey Maxson, do you have any objections to leaving before dawn? If we time it right we can be at Taffington just as the sun is coming up."

"Not at all. I'll have the Lancer prepare the vertibird," Maxson said as he stood.

Lacing his other boot, Luke watched as the Elder stepped out the front door. Standing up, he slowly stretched before going over to the trunk under the window and opening it up. Removing some of his favorite pieces of leather armor, he pulled them out and began to put them on.

"Do be careful, Mister Luke," Codsworth told him.

"I will," he assured the Mister Handy. "The suit I've got stored at Taffington is suited to the area. It has a brighter headlamp and tesla coils."

"Very well, sir."

Leaving Codsworth to his early morning routine, Luke slipped down the hallway and peered into Shaun's room. A lantern illuminated the far corner of the room, lighting the rest of the space just enough for him to navigate. Dogmeat's head popped up from behind Shaun's sleeping body. Luke lightly patted his thigh and then waited as the shepherd jumped down from the bed and made his way over.

"Ready to go on a mission boy?" Luke whispered as he knelt down.

Dogmeat started to bark but Luke closed his mouth.

"Shh, don't wake Shaun. Come on boy, we've got a Squire out there that we need to find."

Dogmeat let out a muffled woof.

Luke smiled as he stood. "Let's get going then."

* * *

The early morning sky was still dark and the haze—caused by the Brotherhood's vicious assault on the Malden ruins—blocked out the stars. The fighting had died off hours ago but the smell of gunpowder and burnt plaster lingered in the air, mixing with the smells of mud, rust, and wet timber. Declan lay motionless in the mud at the base of a reinforced junk wall. His cries for help had been weak and airy at best, and had been easily drown out by the people, turrets, and brahmin on the inside.

A lone figure made his way along the hilltop, his footsteps silent as he neared the settlement and knelt by Declan's side. He reached down and checked Declan's pulse before adjusting his hat and looking around. His gaze lingered on an overhead turret that was trained on him. It would be hours before there was enough light for a passing provisioner to spot him, and it was highly unlikely any of the settlers inside would notice him thanks to the General's wall.

Scooping Declan up into his arms, he carried the boy out towards the road. The last thing he needed was to emerge from the darkness and haze too close to one of the guard posts and get one of them accidentally shot. He carried him along the road, making no effort to hide his presence from the security lights or the guards. He stopped walking where a muddy footpath met the pavement. A security light focused on him, and he could hear a guard call out for assistance. He kept his gaze low, allowing the brim of his hat to hide his face in shadow.

"Hey!" the guard yelled down. "Who are you? What's your business at Greentop?"

The stranger didn't answer. He just watched the rise and fall of Declan's chest. Satisfied that he had the settlement's attention, he knelt down, his trenchcoat falling into the mud. He carefully placed Declan on the ground, ignoring the guard's questions. For a moment Declan opened his eyes and stared at him, but they fluttered closed again when the stranger stood and was no longer blocking him from the security light.

"I asked you a question!" the guard insisted. "Where did you go?"

As stealthily as the stranger had arrived, he'd also disappeared. Declan was left lying on the rocky mud struggling to get his bearings and trying to figure out what was going on.

"There's someone outside!" the guard called down to the settlers below. "It's a kid!"

The gate popped and creaked as it slowly opened. A big black dog squeezed her way through the gates when they started to part and a young floppy-eared shepherd ran after her, barking excitedly. The dogs reached him first. Lying on his back, Declan grimaced as he slowly sat up. His left leg hurt terribly so he shifted his weight to lean more on the right side of his body. While it helped at alleviating some of the pain, it caused his right hand to sting. He fell down to his elbow and propped himself up as the animals bore down on him.

The black dog immediately began licking his face and stepped on his injured hand. Declan cried out and then shoved her back with what little strength he had. The dog was undeterred and he quickly pulled his hand closer to his body as she moved in to continue where she'd left off. He tried to push her back again but was too weak. Letting his left hand fall limply onto his side he scrunched his nose, looked down, and just conceded defeat. He wiped at the side of his face with his shoulder. Since leather wasn't the most absorbent material all he managed to do was smear her saliva across his cheek. As his eyes focused a little under the spotlight, he could see teeth, tongue, and a scarred black snout. The animal was obviously friendly, but it's breath reeked.

"Stop it," he protested weakly as the dog resumed licking his face. His fingers found the chain around her neck and he clung to it, using it to help hold himself up. Finally upright, he clung to the dog and laid his head against the animal's shoulder. He slid his other arm around the dog's body and just sat still. The dog stopped licking him and stood over him as if she were standing guard. He could make out a few figures approaching him with guns drawn. He closed his eyes and prepared for the worst.

"There's a kid out there!" the guard continued yelling. "Seriously. This mysterious stranger just dropped him at the gate and then disappeared!"

Declan closed his eyes as he leaned against the big dog. They weren't shouting threats or obscenities, their dogs weren't attacking him...he had to be at one of the Minutemen settlements. As the figures surrounded him, he began to cry.

A woman dressed in rags knelt beside him. Her hands patted down his shoulders and arms, checking for injuries. She held him at an arm's length, trying to assess his condition. Someone else arrived seconds later and took hold of the dog's collar and pulled her back so that the other settlers could lift Declan up. A few of the others turned and went along the settlement walls with their guns drawn. While they were friendly, there was a strong sense of paranoia hanging in the air.

"Ow ow!" Declan cried out as they pulled him to his feet. He collapsed against the plaid-covered chest of a man he'd never met, and clung to the man's dirty shirt for dear life.

"Group hug?" the man asked as he placed an arm around Declan's shoulders. "You look like you could use a hug."

"He could use a doctor," the woman corrected. "Look at his leg. I'll go rouse Pike." She hurried off, leaving Declan to the settlers outside.

* * *

It turned out that Dwayne the raider hadn't been exaggerating when he described what had happened at his camp. Teagan and his team had forced the hapless raider to lead them to the location, and had only released him after he pointed out the direction Declan had fled. While initially Teagan had planned to let his team rest there, the sheer carnage that they found quickly changed his mind. Even under the glow of the fading campfire it was obvious that the deceased raiders had died particularly gruesome deaths and most were at least partially eaten. The most ravaged raider lay next to a bloated and deceased ghoul, his entire abdominal cavity devoid of its organs.

The smell was almost unbearable.

They searched the entire site with headlamps and makeshift torches for both supplies and any sign of Declan. Teagan sat on a tree stump and stared down at the ghoul the raider had said attacked his nephew. Dry blood covered its face and its body was littered with stab wounds too small to have been made by any of the weapons the raiders had possessed. He rubbed his face as he tried to will away the exhaustion that was setting into his bones. Declan was nowhere to be found—which given their current surroundings was a relief—but Teagan now feared his nephew was wounded. Quinlan's warning about the ghouls was starting to haunt him.

He ran his hand through his hair and paused when he heard a familiar hissing and rustling behind him. His torch fell to the ground as he lept to his feet and whirled around. He pulled out his serrated Chinese officer's sword just in time to block the lunge of a lingering feral. He shoved the monster back before striking the shriveled beast with as much force as he could muster. Teagan's eyes never left his enemy, afraid of losing sight of it in the darkness. It lunged at him a second time, minus one of its arms. Teagan struck the monster again, making contact with its withered neck and sending its head tumbling in the opposite direction of its body. Behind him he could hear his men rushing over to assist him.

"Why wasn't that abomination found when you did a sweep of the area?" he asked his men as he put the sword away.

"Because it wasn't here, sir," Paladin Kris assured him. "It might have been a straggler that was roaming further out when we did our sweep."

Teagan nodded as he brushed his hair back to keep it out of his eyes. "Well keep a sharp eye out, they seldom travel alone."

"Yes, sir."

They left the camp once they picked up—what Teagan sincerely hoped—was Declan's trail. The sun was finally starting to rise, illuminating the fog with an odd yellow glow. It made tracking a bit difficult, but they took their time. Following his trail to a guardrail on the side of a desolate street, they stopped. He could've gone to the north or south. South certainly made more sense because it was the way toward the Prydwen, but then again, Declan had ended up pretty far north as it was. Teagan pulled out his brother's compass and opened it up. With little to no visibility, no compass, and no firearm, it was a wonder that his nephew was even still alive—at least he hoped he was still alive.

In the distance he could hear a brahmin. Teagan ran ahead of the team and followed the sound through the fog. He felt as if he were running blindly through the wasteland and it unnerved him. Eventually he came across a ghoul provisioner at the intersection of two roads.

"Careful stranger, you've got a dangerous look about you," the provisioner warned him as he walked past.

"I'm looking for a boy about this tall," Teagan held up his hand. "Dark hair, shaved on the sides." He watched as the provisioner stopped walking. He could tell the ghoul didn't trust him—not that he blamed him.

"I don't know about any dark hair, but a kid about that high came through here yesterday. Made it as far as the Slog before he got spooked by the ghouls and took off. He had a knit cap on his head and a fancy leather coat."

"Which way did he go?" Teagan asked, urgency in his tone. "Was he injured?"

"I ran into him at the checkpoint down the road," the ghoul pointed back behind him. "He was wounded. I tried to help him but he pulled a gun on me and wouldn't let me near him. I gave him directions to another settlement, but he never showed."

Teagan stepped further out into the intersection to try and see the settlement. He closed his eyes, the fog and his exhaustion were starting to get to him.

"He probably didn't believe me. The place used to be overrun by super mutants, the Minutemen haven't had possession of it for very long. It's still ...a mess. As freaked out as he was, he probably went on past it."

Teagan sighed. They were so close.

"I take it he's that boy the Brotherhood is looking for," the provisioner said as the rest of the team caught up.

"He is," Teagan answered.

"There's a chance he kept going straight," the ghoul offered after a moment. "But I doubt that he did. A storm rolled in at the same time he went through here. It got pretty intense, he would've had to have taken shelter somewhere, and the road going straight offers no shelter whatsoever. If I were you I'd head down that way, then make a left at the base of the bluffs. There's a sideroad. It'll take you past the sinkhole. It's prime breeding ground for the stingwing so watch out for them and the deathclaw that likes to feed off of them. There's a settlement if you continue going south. It'll be on the left. It's pretty populated, there's a chance someone might've seen him."

The sinkhole—so now they were walking in circles. "Thank you," Teagan said sincerely. He turned to his team. "We'll follow the road to this settlement, regardless of whether they've seen Declan or not, we'll take some time to rest." The soldiers who weren't in power armor looked visibly relieved. "Let's move out."

* * *

The morning sun was barely up in the sky when Maxson's vertibird descended onto the tree-covered hill just west of Taffington Boathouse. Luke held on tightly to the mounted minigun and braced himself, not trusting the pilot to not get them all killed. Why they were landing in the trees escaped him, there was a perfectly usable road that ran right through the Taffington settlement. He couldn't jump and bail without a suit of armor, so he just closed his eyes and hoped for the best.

The house itself was intact, the Minutemen renovations and reinforcements stood strong. The garage, an outhouse, and parts of the perimeter fence weren't so lucky. The garage was smoking, the roof visibly charred, one of the outhouses had been blown apart, the earth scorched all around its base, and the northern perimeter fence had partially collapsed. The road leading into the settlement was stained red with blood and littered with the corpses of super mutants. A lone guard watched from his tower, the Minutemen flag hanging up above him.

The vertibird touched down and its rotors stirred up dirt and twigs and whipped them around like tiny projectiles. Luke was the first one out and he kept his head low as he hastily descended the hill and made his way down to the road. There was a dismembered Super Mutant lying at the base of the main gate. The left side of the gate was jammed shut with one of its hinges bent at an odd angle, and the right side of the gate was torn off its hinges entirely and lay on the stained pavement. The blood on the pavement was sticky under his boots so he walked quickly to get past it. Luke stepped over one of the super mutant's arms and walked across the broken part of the gate to go inside. Dogmeat followed him closely before abandoning him to go greet Sheila—the settlement's junkyard dog.

"General!" The settlement leader greeted him. "Damn good to see you," she smiled. "They came at us as retaliation for hurting their brothers. They brought a suicider and a missile launcher, but we made short work of 'em."

Luke nodded, taking in the damage around him.

"They would've had backup but the Brotherhood swooped in and launched one hell of a counter attack on the hospital. I ain't never seen so many suits in one place—and I've seen your personal little power armor shrine in Sanctuary."

Luke fought a grin. "Did we have any casualties? Is anyone hurt?"

"Nothing Dr. Garret couldn't handle," she assured him.

"Do you know what all is damaged?"

"Glen is taking inventory as we speak." She hesitated. "Is that Arthur Maxson?" she asked. "Elder Maxson of the Brotherhood of Steel?"

Luke glanced over to the main gate where Danse and Maxson were standing. "Yeah," he answered as she walked past him. He turned and watched as she marched over to Maxson. Before he could stop her, she was shaking the Elder's hand, thanking him profusely for sending in reinforcements to assist the Minutemen. Luke brought a hand up to his mouth to hide his smile. Maxson looked surprised at first, but he accepted the praise well.

A short old man walked up and handed Luke a clipboard with a list of damages. "Thank you Glen," Luke said as he read over the list. "All of the lost turrets were on the north side?"

"Yes sir, we've got Tyler and Hattie on them. They should be back up by nightfall. Brock and Leslie are rebuilding some of the panels on the perimeter wall, but right now, there's not a thing we can do about the main purifier," Glen explained.

"What's wrong with the main purifier?" Luke asked as Danse and Maxson came up behind him.

"The top half of it was blown off."

"Oh."

"Damn ornery bastards," the settlement leader complained.

Luke looked over at Maxson and smiled. "I see you've met Rosie."

"I have," Maxson nodded.

"Alright Rosie, what have you got for us?" Luke asked.

"Follow me to the back," she said.

Luke did as he was told, following her around the side of the house and along the decking that hung out over the water. He'd noticed that his armor wasn't in the shed that it was supposed to be in. He kept waiting to find a settler still walking around in it but so far, no luck. There were a few settlers sitting out on cinder blocks and overturned buckets as they ate and conversed between themselves. They looked haggard. Luke assumed they'd been up since the fighting started the night before but none of them were in power armor.

"This is probably about the clearest it's going to be until after noon or one o'clock," she told them as she gestured out towards the river. "You can already see where the fog is moving back in. The vertibird was shot down from over there," she gestured toward the opposite bank. "It hit where the wall looks freshly crumbled and the tail is sticking up. When you gave the order to move on West Everetts, the first wave of Minutemen were comprised of seven of our guys, ten from Covenant, and nine between two patrols that were in the area. Reinforcements came in from Country Crossing and Greentop. I don't know exactly how many men came with the second wave, but I know that we lost three men and one of the dogs. Once we got control of the place, each of the participating settlements left three men behind to hold it. That put us short six people when the mutants attacked us." She paused, clearly distraught but trying to mask it. "They say that Everetts place is huge and that there's a lot of scrap potential there. One of the patrols has set up a temporary checkpoint to try and boost security. They've already had an incident where a mutant tried to get in. It was at about the same time they launched their counterattack on us. We don't know if it was intentional, but if it was, the mutants are getting more organized."

Luke frowned at the thought. "Did they find any survivors or the remains of the Brotherhood team?"

"They found a Knight just outside of some underground bunker. She'd taken out a handful of the mutants on her own, but she ran out of ammunition and her suit was badly damaged so she took cover. She went back above ground after hearing our guys move in, and the way they tell it, she'd lost all of her armor and had one of those pre-war rippers. They said she tore through three mutant hounds and a butcher like it was nothing. She tried to search for the rest of her team, a boy in particular, but she'd lost too much blood and couldn't go on anymore. They convinced her to come over here for treatment. The remains of three others were recovered by our guys—two of them in the river and one of them in the brush. And late last night after we were attacked, a pair of Brotherhood suits pulled a Paladin out of the water. I didn't quite get his name, it was Reed or Reese. I really should've because I gave him your spare armor," she admitted.

Luke tore his gaze away from the foggy shore and frowned. "I was going to ask where that was. I didn't bring a suit because I thought I had one here."

"I'm sorry General. You told me I could lend it out if one of your friends requested it. He insisted that you two were brothers and that you wouldn't mind."

"Did he now?" Luke spared a quick glance over to Danse and Maxson. "And where did Reeves say he was going to go with my armor?"

"He said he was going to follow the route he'd told the Squire to take back to the Prydwen—south-east along the river. He left by himself going up through the shallows before walking along the river's edge." She gestured toward a bank they could no longer see thanks to the fog.

"Is that everybody?" Luke asked.

"It is," Maxson nodded.

"We tried to warn the Paladin before he left that he would be passing through an area that always seemed to have a lot of ghouls in it but he didn't seem concerned. I couldn't imagine someone fighting their way through that area alone, let alone a child. We put out word for a patrol to go through the area and render aid if the Paladin needed it. They haven't reported back in yet."

Luke nodded, knowing the area she was speaking of. The Star Paladin was certainly in a suit specifically designed to handle the area he was walking into. "Where's the Knight now? Can I speak to her?"

"She's back across the river, still searching the area for the boy."

"Surely if he survived the crash he would've started back towards the Prydwen," Danse spoke up.

"Assuming he could see the Prydwen," Luke countered. Danse, Luke, and Maxson all looked up in the same direction, but nothing could be seen but fog. Rosie followed their gazes but seemed unimpressed with the view.

"This must be his armor," Luke said as he walked around the back of the house and over to where a damaged power armor frame stood next to the workshop. He knelt down and inspected it. "It's fused right here," he said out loud. "And you can see on this side where this part of the frame was starting to buckle. He picked up a mangled piece of the right leg and held it up where it should've fit—it was damaged almost to the point of unrecognition. "This suit's ruined. It's a wonder he wasn't crushed inside of it." He picked up another piece of the mangled armor and turned it over in his hand. He could make out a partial Brotherhood symbol but it was obscured by the charring on the paint.

"We had to cut him out," a random settler walked up. "Took damn near an hour, even with this at our disposal."

Luke turned to see a settler in combat armor holding a blood-covered ripper. He felt the color drain from his face. Sure he still used the things to help scrap larger items at his settlements, but he certainly didn't fight with them—not since his days during the war.

"Are you alright sir?" the settler asked.

"Go clean that thing up," Luke told him. "It's a valuable tool but I don't want to hear of it being used as a weapon unless absolutely necessary."

"The guys said that Knight tore through the Super Mutants with this," the settler protested.

"And it makes a horrific mess," he told him. "Just trust me, you don't want that sort of thing haunting your dreams."

"Yes, sir," the settler said, sparing Danse a small wave before quickly leaving.

Danse offered the settler a nod before turning his attention back to Luke. "You used one of those during the war didn't you?"

Luke nodded. "I built them, rebuilt them, built with them..."

"Killed with them?"

There was a long pause as Luke knelt down next to a water pump. He gave the handle a few good pumps to get the water flowing and then cupped his hands to collect it. Leaning in he splashed his face with the cool water. "When I had to," he answered quietly.


	8. Greentop

Greentop

Sunlight streamed through the cracks in the wood-paneled wall of the Greentop Medical Clinic. The light fell across the top of a battered gray storage cabinet, a table full of meds and instruments, and the only bed with a patient in it. Shifting under his sheet and blanket, Declan squinted and raised his hand to ward off the offending light. His head felt fuzzy and his mouth dry.

As his eyes slowly adjusted, the items around him came into focus. There was a tray with some basic medical supplies at his bedside. He eyed the scissors and the partially spent stimpack and then looked down at his injured hand. His bloodied bandana was gone—replaced with a loose wrapping. Underneath, he could see more than a dozen stitches holding the red, irritated skin of his hand together. Then he noticed the IV line. Following it up with his eyes, he found a bag of RadAway hanging on a hook above his bed. Most of the orange liquid in it was already gone, leading Declan to wonder just how long he'd been at this makeshift medical facility. How did he even get there?

"Hey folks, this is Travis 'Lonely' Miles here, bringing you the type of news you just don't hear everyday. The details are a bit sketchy, but word from the Minutemen is that the Brotherhood of Steel has lost one of their Squires. For those of you who are unfamiliar, a Squire is like a child apprentice or, I guess, soldier. I couldn't imagine this is really the type of thing the Brotherhood would want getting out, but if they've enlisted the help of the Minutemen, then things must be serious. If you're in the Malden River area, keep an eye out for a twelve year old boy who might be out there wandering around all alone. If you have any information about his whereabouts, don't hesitate to go to the nearest Minuteman and let them know. I sure hope he's okay..."

Declan listened to the radio broadcast. They were talking about him. The Brotherhood had contacted the Minutemen? Would he be in trouble? He hoped not, although he couldn't imagine that Elder Maxson or Captain Kells would be very happy to hear that radio announcement.

"So, like, are you that kid that everyone in the Commonwealth is out looking for?"

Declan looked over to see a dark-haired settler leaned up against a medical table. He couldn't see past the settler's sunglasses, but he could tell the man was staring straight at him and it made him a little uncomfortable.

"Yes sir, I am," Declan answered.

The man smirked. "You sure know how to make an entrance."

"Wh-what do you mean?" he asked. He could barely focus on now, he certainly couldn't remember how he got there.

"What do I mean?" the settler chuckled and then paused just long enough to take a drag from his cigarette. "You're out there travelin' with the Mysterious Stranger and you don't think that's at least a little bit interesting?"

"The Mysterious—" The man in the trenchcoat! "He shot at that feral that was after me." All of those times he thought he was being watched, that time he saw someone out of the corner of his eye...

"Yes, well, he also carried you to the front gate and left you where the guard would see you-" a thin, silver-haired man in a white coat interrupted his thoughts. "Doc Pike," he introduced himself to Declan. "And Deacon, if I've told you once I've told you ten times, stop smoking in my clinic." The plaid-clad settler grinned mischievously as he adjusted his sunglasses and leaned over so he could flick his cigarette out the door. Pike paused to watch him. "And if you burn down this settlement..."

"Geez, don't worry," Deacon laughed it off. "Everything's wet."

Declan licked his lips. "What happened to the Mysterious Stranger?"

"Don't know," the doctor replied. "To hear the guard tell it, he just vanished."

"He popped a Stealth Boy and bugged out," Deacon grinned. "Or did he? He could've been watching us the entire time we were cutting you open."

Doc Pike gave him an exasperated look. "Oh don't be ridiculous. The dogs would've alerted us."

Declan watched them go back and forth uneasily. "You guys cut me open?"

Pike glared at Deacon. "And now you've scared the boy," he scolded him. "I had to make a few incisions to aid in the removal of the maggots in your leg. One of them had embedded itself quite deep into the muscle."

Deacon and Declan both made unpleasant faces.

"Now who's scaring him?" Deacon shuddered.

"It is a very real and unfortunate hazard in the Commonwealth," Pike dismissed him as he moved Declan's sheet and blanket aside and peeled back the bandages on his leg. "Hand me the partially used stimpack on the table, I think he can handle the rest of the shot."

"Will do."

Declan watched the settlement doctor as he checked on his injuries and removed some of his bandages. "What all did you have to do?" Now that he could see the damage to his leg, he was suddenly very aware that he was wearing nothing but his underwear and only had a patched sheet and blanket to cover himself up with.

"Well, we had to flush out the wounds on your hand and extract the bloatfly maggots from your leg before we could stimpack you," Pike replied as he pulled his glasses onto his face and examined a place on the side of Declan's neck and face. "Technically, I suppose we didn't have to, but it really aides in the healing process and helps minimize scarring." He leaned back and smiled. "No one will ever be able to tell those burns were ever there." He handed Declan a fancy little mirror, and Declan turned his head to look at the side of his face. The Doc wasn't lying about his burns, but Declan couldn't get over how pale his face looked, or how dark the skin was under his eyes. "Then I loosely stitched your wounds to encourage the way I wanted the tissue to grow back together and I administered the first half of the stimpack to the deepest of your damaged tissue." Pike removed his IV and pulled the empty RadAway bag off the wall. "Normally I would've given a child your size an entire stimpack, but with your level of dehydration and the number of other medications I had you on, I opted to err on the side of caution."

Deacon stood waiting with the requested stimpack in one hand and a lounge shirt in the other. Pike took the stimpack but Declan hesitated to take the shirt. "Hey, it was with your stuff so I assumed it was yours."

Declan took the shirt and pulled it on. It was comically large on him, and he wrapped it around himself as Pike removed the last of his bandages and readied the stimpack.

"This should help your body finish healing its wounds. Don't worry, you're not going to feel a thing."

Despite being familiar with stimpacks, the sight of the large needle still made Declan cringe. Turning toward Deacon, he buried his face in his shirt and slid an arm around his waist when the doctor leaned in.

"This is familiar," Deacon announced as he placed an arm around Declan's shoulders.

"Wha?" Declan started to ask but stopped when he felt Pike touch his leg. He held his breath, waiting for the stinging sensation that was sure to follow, but all he felt was a little bit of pressure. He tightened his hold around Deacon's waist and kept his eyes tightly closed as he waited.

"When you first arrived here you grabbed onto him and you didn't let go until we pumped you full of Med-X." Pike moved around the small clinic, cleaning up. "I've already administered the rest of the stimpack, boy."

Declan loosened his grip and pulled away from Deacon. He looked around, not entirely believing the doctor.

"Med-X is some powerful stuff," Deacon said with a grin.

"Alright, as soon as you're up to it, you need to get up and move around," Pike informed him. "Your muscles have been through a significant amount of trauma, the last thing you want is them cramping up after they've been rapidly repaired. Also, between the stimpack and the RadAway, you're going to end up dehydrated again if you don't drink enough. Make sure you drink as much as you need. Actually, drink more than you think you need."

"My mouth is really dry," Declan admitted.

"I'm not surprised. I'll have someone bring you something. Take it easy," he added as an afterthought, "and I'll remove those stitches before you leave."

Declan watched as the doctor removed his coat and hung it on a nail sticking out of the wall. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"I have been up since the Mysterious Stranger left you at our gate. I am going to go sleep until someone comes to get you and inevitably has a dozen questions they want to ask about your treatment. Remember to drink."

"I will," Declan assured him. "Thank you."

Pike smiled. "Thank me by staying out of trouble."

Moments after the doctor left, a ghoul wearing a Minuteman uniform came in. He brought a mug of water with him. Declan stiffened and sat up a bit straighter. Deacon took a seat in a corner chair and crossed his arms.

"I see you still don't like ghouls," the ghoul stated as he offered Declan the water. Declan opened his mouth to speak but the Minuteman didn't let him. "Don't waste your breath kid, I heard all about what an abomination I was while you were drugged up and fighting us in your delirium this morning."

Declan looked down at his lap, not sure if he was more frightened or mortified.

"Believe me, after 200 years a ghoul gets used to it. Here, drink up."

Declan looked up just enough to see the coffee mug. Reaching out a trembling hand, he took it.

"Are you afraid of me?" the ghoul asked. "I promise I won't bite."

Declan closed his eyes and started quietly crying. He spilled some of the water on the edge of his bed as he tried to sit the mug down so he could cover his face.

"Look what you did," Deacon accused.

"No, no kid! Don't cry! I said I wouldn't bite."

"He was attacked by ferals," Deacon scolded.

"Oh, kid, I'm so sorry. I mean it, really." He tentatively placed a hand on Declan's shoulder but then thought better of it. "I'm one of the good guys. I've been out there tryin' to keep people safe from things like the ferals for over 200 years."

Declan sat very stiffly but his thirst was a strong motivator. Lowering his hands to wipe the tears off of his face, he reached out his still trembling hand and picked the coffee mug back up. He held it tensely between his hands. "You're prewar," he whispered, studying the mug and still not looking at the ghoul.

"I was thirty-four when the bombs started droppin'," the ghoul said as he pulled a chair over and sat on it. He grimaced a bit as he propped his feet up on the foot of Declan's bed. "Had myself one of those suits of armor... back when a fusion core would last damn near an entire deployment—longer if you didn't see much action. I don't know how the Brotherhood keeps all those sets of armor goin' on such limited capacity cores."

Declan looked up and made eye contact with him for the first time. He had surprisingly blue eyes, even if they were a bit hazed over from radiation, ghoulification, or whatever chems he currently used. They were nothing like the feral ghoul's eyes—they were soft and friendly...they were disarming. "I never really thought about it."

The ghoul grinned. "Chip Carpenter," he introduced himself. "149th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade of the U.S. Army."

"Declan Ashley," he said quietly. "...Named for both of my parents."

"I like that," the ghoul smiled.

Declan focused his gaze on his water, bringing the mug up to his lips and taking a drink. He got choked up when the liquid hit his parched throat. He coughed for a few moments before chancing a second drink. "What was it like before the bombs fell?"

Chip sighed and sat quiet for a few moments. He stared distantly at a little metal trinket woven into the laces of his boots. Declan followed his gaze and squinted as the battered, little, bronze star came into focus—the significance lost on him. He looked back up and chanced making eye contact with the weathered old ghoul. "It was like nothin' you'll ever experience in your life. Clean, comfortable little houses, beautiful, manicured yards, you didn't have to hunt, farm, or purify your water...You could walk outside and not pack a weapon. The wildlife was generally non-hostile, there were no raiders or super mutants, certainly no deathclaws or ghouls. Just regular people everywhere, livin' in their cute little communities, hopin' the government would be smart enough not to get them blown up."

"We know how that turned out," Deacon said under his breath.

"What was that like?" Declan asked. "When the bombs fell?"

There was an uneasy pause. "One of the scariest days of my life."

Declan's grip on his mug tightened. "It wasn't the scariest?"

Chip shook his head. "I was on leave from a deployment. I didn't have a family or many non-military friends to go back home to visit—service was pretty much mandatory for anyone without a convincin' doctor's note. So I followed a few of my fellow soldiers to New York City for a vacation. The thing about New York, is it was the biggest city in the country. Millions and millions of people, skyscrapers that blocked out the sun, people just packed into some places like sardines—although I guess that reference is a bit outdated. But when the bombs fell, the people that didn't burn up and die, or get crushed under fallin' debris, went into a panic. It was pure chaos and terror. It is really a wonder any of us survived, the city had to be a huge target to the enemy. But right off the bat there were people lootin' the shops and department stores.

"You see, back before the bombs fell, basic necessities were scarce and rationed by the government. People began fightin' over whatever they could find. Fights began breakin' out everywhere. Those that were desperate to get away or get home had no way to get there. Most of the roads were buried under the rubble of fallen skyscrapers and the trains stopped runnin'. The underground tunnels were passable, but with no power you might as well been walkin' blindly through a cave. The air was almost unbreathable—there was this thick dust in the air. It was –" he stopped talking. "I shouldn't be tellin' you all this... you're just a kid, and you've already been through enough."

"You have to tell me," Declan pleaded. "I'm with the Brotherhood. It's my obligation to secure information. None of the books on the Prydwen have this kind of information in them."

At his insistence, Chip smiled a bit uncomfortably and rubbed the back of his head. The action pushed his cap forward and he took a long moment to adjust it just right. Declan finished off the water in his mug and sat it down. Deacon picked the mug up and took it outside.

"There wasn't a person there that wasn't injured in one way or another—burns, dismemberment, radiation sickness. Some people were in such a state of shock that they just wandered around. Their eyes were open but nobody was home. They were like ghosts just drifting, unable to process what had happened to them." Chip grew quiet for a long moment.

"The first ghouls, the first feral ghouls I remember seein' were out on the freeway a few days later. We didn't understand what we were witnessin' at first. But we saw a pair of them, bloodied and well, ghoul-like. Their clothes were ripped and soiled and they lunged at people like animals. I watched a delivery man beat them to death with a tire iron to protect some lady and her kid hiding in the back of a car. We were so shocked by the scene that we didn't do anything. It worked out I guess, the delivery man was a strong fighter, but I was a soldier and I should've helped him."

Chip paused long enough to rub his face. "One of the soldiers I was travelin' with, his name was Jack. Jack had family in Boston. There were three of us that survived from our group and we walked from New York to Boston. It took weeks. The other guy, his name was Danny, went ghoul while we traveled. There was nothin' we could do to stop it—we just watched a little of his humanity fall away with every day. First it was his skin and ears, then it was the nose on his face. He was rightly freaked out about the whole ordeal but he wasn't alone. We saw other people goin' through the same thing as they traveled, tryin' to get to wherever they were goin'. He wanted us to shoot him but with the looters and scavengers out, we couldn't spare the bullets. Two days before we reached Boston, Danny went feral. Up until that point ghouls had been frightenin' to look at but I wasn't afraid of them—if that makes sense. But to actually fight one off for the first time..." He sighed and gave Declan a sympathetic look. "He turned into a dangerous animal and we had to shoot him on the side of that freeway. One of the hardest things we had to do was leave his body behind."

Deacon returned with a mug full of fresh water and placed it next to Declan's bed. Declan picked it up and sipped it, too enthralled with Chip's story to be distracted by the fact that he was a ghoul.

"We made it to Jack's house on the outskirts of town, but Jack had gotten sick and eventually he died from what I guess was radiation sickness," Chip continued. "I helped his family bury him in the backyard. I stayed to protect his family from anyone that tried to come around causin' trouble. I went into the city at least a few dozen times with Jack's father, doin' whatever I could to help him find Jack's wife. She was a nurse at one of the local hospitals but she never came home after the bombs fell. We found her car down an embankment and partially submerged in some water. We had to wade through some nasty stuff to get to the car but there was no one inside. We never figured out what happened to her," he frowned.

"It wasn't long after that I realized I was startin' to go ghoul. I locked myself away from the family so I couldn't hurt them. His parents were old and his kids were little, I could've posed a very real danger to them. I was becomin' a monster and the day I realized that was the scariest day of my life. I felt so powerless and I just knew that I was gonna hurt someone. But as time went by, I never went feral and I came out of confinement. Jack's parents eventually died and his kids grew up, married into other families, and went their own ways. Left alone, I went on to join what would eventually be known as the Minutemen."

Declan sat silently as he let everything sink in. "That's... quite a story," Declan settled on. Truth be told, he didn't know what to say. "The Minutemen do good work."

Chip smiled. "That they do, especially with Luke, Preston, and Ronnie runnin' things."

Declan smiled faintly. He still wanted to know more but he didn't know how to ask. He sat his empty mug aside as he debated. It was odd, he'd had two mugs of water but he still felt thirsty. "Where's the nearest latrine?" he asked sheepishly.

"There's some outhouses at the end of the shacks," Chip gestured as he stood. "I can go grab your clothes and your boots if you want to go out."

"Yes, please," Declan said as he tested putting weight on his newly healed hand before easing over to the edge of the bed. Chip retrieved his things and then he and Deacon left to give Declan privacy. Declan pulled on his pants, surprised to see that someone had crudely stitched the tears back together. They'd also apparently washed them because much of the dirt was gone but they weren't quite dry yet. Damp pants aside, he did feel better wearing them. Pulling his socks out of his boots and onto his feet, he reached for his boots and took his time slowly pulling them on and lacing them up. Sliding his knife into the holster on the inside of his boot, he slowly stood and tested his balance a little before flattening out his loose leisure shirt against his chest. Leaving his damp undershirt and armored coat behind, he carefully stepped outside and shielded his eyes.

Squinting against the bright sunlight that made it through the fog, he walked along the row of shack buildings that appeared to be forming a perimeter wall—complete with guard posts up on top. Some of the shacks were more decorated than others, some even having potted plants next to their steps. He peered inside a shack with an open doorway and saw a chair and a trunk against the wall and a metal framed bed with black linens spilling onto the floor. There was a lantern and a pack of cigarettes on the trunk and it was then that he realized that each little shack was someone's home. He looked up at the nearest guard standing at his post, and watched the turret that sat vigilantly beside him—waiting for the moment that the guard should ever need assistance.

The continuous rumble of the turrets seemed to be everywhere. It wasn't overwhelmingly loud but it was an ever-present background noise. Looking over his shoulder, he found another sitting up on a makeshift mount built on top of the greenhouse. Well within the settlement's perimeter, that turret had to be a backup should the walls ever be breached. Feeling more secure than he'd felt since he'd left the Prydwen, Declan kept walking.

Reaching the end of the shack house row, he found a settler in welding goggles, a bandana, a lighted helmet, and head to toe leather attire. From what he could tell it was all protective gear because the settler appeared to be breaking down scrap materials and separating it at his workstation. He would've stayed longer to see what the settler was going to do with but the scrap but the outhouses were in sight and he really had to go. Stepping to the nearest available outhouse, he pulled open the door and went inside.

When he emerged a few minutes later there was a boy washing his hands under the flow of a water pump. "Hey," the boy called out to him before tossing a block of soap in his direction. "Wash up, we don't need people getting sick." Declan picked up the soap and watched as the shorter boy shook his hands off and then dried them on his shirt. His boots and the knees of his pants were caked in mud, and Declan wasn't sure that the boys hands were as clean as he thought they were.

"Are you a farmer?" Declan asked as he followed the boy's lead and used the water pump to wash his hands. He was very careful around his stitches even though the skin looked fairly healed.

"All my life," he answered. "Are you any good with a shovel or a hoe?"

"I've never really used one," Declan admitted as he shook the water off of his hands.

"That's adorable. Follow me," he gestured as he led the way back towards the rear of the greenhouse. Curious, Declan followed him. "Did Doc clear you for work yet?"

Declan shook his head. "He said to take it easy."

The boy frowned. "Figures. Still can't hurt for you to watch—you might learn something. And if you stay here long enough you might end up tending the crop. We're kind of competing with Abernathy Farm to see who can produce the most food. They're still beating us but they've got a lot more farmhands," he said as he picked up a shovel and leaned on it for support. "They were an established settlement before Greentop was and they've also been designated a distribution point so they have more people. That place is big enough to be a small town."

"I've heard about it but I've never been there. I've been to Starlight though," Declan offered.

The boy smiled. "I've heard that there are so many people there that they have a working factory and a shower house."

"They do," Declan smiled. "They make toys there."

"That explains where the new toys at the store are coming from."

Declan nodded with a grin.

"I'm Stanley," the boy extended his hand.

"Declan," he responded, reaching out and shaking hands with him.

"Pay attention Declan and you might learn something. This is a shovel," Stanley said as he held the instrument up by it's handle. "We use it to move dirt, dig up rocks, bust up roots, chase off mongrels, bat at stingwings...it is quite the multi-purpose instrument."

"Bat at stingwings?"

"Yeah you know like baseball—whack 'em real good in the head and then use the spade to slice it right off! I've personally eliminated two that way," he declared proudly. "I have one of them hanging in the house as my trophy. I'll show you when we're done with the carrots."

"Okay," Declan smiled.

"Anyway, I like to use the shovel to loosen the soil a bit. The dirt out here gets really compacted and some of the plants have a hard time growing in it—" Stanley quit talking and appeared to be waiting for something.

"What is it?"Declan asked.

"Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"The ground," Stanley said at about the same time Declan felt the ground rise and move underneath his feet.

Declan stumbled backwards, his boots making contact with the base of a set of stairs, causing him to fall back on one of the steps. He lifted his feet up to the bottom step and then sat there and watched the ground suspiciously. "What was that?"

"Molerats or radscoprions," Stanley answered as he propped the shovel up against the wall next to the staircase. "Are you armed?" he asked quietly.

"I've got a combat knife," Declan offered.

"Take the shovel," he ordered. "Hank! Hank!" Stanley shouted up at a guard. "Something's coming!"

Hank turned around as the ground between the greenhouse and the perimeter buildings erupted and dirt rained down from the sky. A pair of radscorpions landed with very audible thuds and their massive bodies caused the shack and staircase to shake. Stanley dove for the stairs and pulled out a pipe pistol. He fired off a few quick shots before the turrets had focused their sights on the beasts.

"Up! Go up!" Stanley shouted as he pushed Declan up the exterior staircase and onto the second level deck that connected the rooftops and catwalks that the guards patrolled on. Stanley fired off another few shots as Hank, the other guards, and the settlers ran over to assist. Declan moved up against the wall of a second story residence to allow Hank to rush past. He reached up and took hold of the wooden safety rail and stood up.

A warning siren wailed overhead as the turrets unleashed on the uninvited beasts. One of the radscorpions dove back into the ground while the other whipped around the back of the greenhouse pursuing a heavier settler. Everyone focused their gunfire on it as the other radscorpion came up closer to the main house. Declan would've shouted a warning but a third scorpion surprised him by lunging up out of the soil just beyond the perimeter wall. He clutched the top rail and watched as it disappeared under the fog. He couldn't see it anymore but the turret next to him clearly could, because once it started firing it didn't stop.

He looked over, suddenly aware that Stanley wasn't with him. Where was he? His brief feeling of safety was quickly slipping away as he looked for his friend. He whirled around searching the ground below and then the catwalk that connected the buildings and guard towers. His eyes came across something just barely visible through the trees and it stopped him in his tracks. At first he didn't believe it but there she was—through the trees and above the fog, the Prydwen floated high over the horizon.

Declan was taken aback, he hadn't expected to see the ship ever again and yet there she was. The sheer joy and relief he felt was overwhelming. He covered his mouth and took a step back. A sharp pain tore through his hip and, in trying to twist away from whatever had a hold of him, his foot slipped off the edge of his platform and he fell to the ground below. He landed square on his back next to the brahmin trough and the wind was knocked out of his chest. The already panicked brahmin jumped over him and fled the area. He attempted to raise his arms to shield himself—not that they would've made a difference against an animal of that size—but his body was still too shocked from his fall to really do what he wanted it to do. If he could just survive this attack, maybe he would make it home.


End file.
